Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 8:6 - 8:6

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 8:6 - 8:6


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After Solomon has thus called to remembrance the commencement of their love-relation, which receives again a special consecration by the reference to Shulamith's parental home, and to her mother, Shulamith answers with a request to preserve for her this love.

6 Place me as a signet-ring on thy heart,

As a signet-ring on thine arm!

For strong as death is love;

Inexorable as hell is jealousy:

Its flames are flames of fire,

A flame of Jah.

7 Mighty waters are unable to quench such love,

And rivers cannot overflow it.

If a man would give

All the wealth of his house for love, -

He would only be contemned.

The signet-ring, which is called חוֹתָם (חָתַם, to impress), was carried either by a string on the breast, Gen 38:18, or also, as that which is called טַבַּעַת denotes (from טָבַע, to sink into), on the hand, Jer 22:24, cf. Gen 41:42; Est 3:12, but not on the arm, like a bracelet, 2Sa 1:10; and since it is certainly permissible to say “hand” for “finger,” but not “arm” for “hand,” so we may not refer “on thine arm” to the figure if the signet-ring, as if Shulamith had said, as the poet might also introduce her as saying: Make me like a signet-ring (כְּחותם) on thy breast; make me like a signet-ring “on thy hand,” or “on thy right hand.” The words, “set me on thy heart,” and “(set me) on thine arm,” must thus also, without regard to “as a signet-ring,” express independent thoughts, although שִׂימֵנִי is chosen (vid., Hag 2:23) instead of קָחֵנִי, in view of the comparison.

(Note: Of the copy of the Tôra, which was to be the king's vade-mecum, it is said, Sanhedrin 21b: עושה אותה כמין קמיע ותולה בזרוע, but also there the amulet is thought of not as fastened to the finger, but as wound round the arm.)

Thus, with right, Hitzig finds the thought therein expressed: “Press me close to thy breast, enclose me in thine arms.” But it is the first request, and not the second, which is in the form עכל־זרועֶךָ, and not על־זְרוֹעֹתֶיךָ (שׁימני), which refers to embracing, since the subject is not the relation of person and thing, but of person and person. The signet-ring comes into view as a jewel, which one does not separate from himself; and the first request is to this effect, that he would bear her thus inalienably (the art. is that of the specific idea) on his heart (Exo 28:29); the meaning of the second, that he would take her thus inseparably as a signet-ring on his arm (cf. Hos 11:3 : “I have taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms”), so that she might lie always on his heart, and have him always at her side (cf. Psa 110:5): she wishes to be united and bound to him indissolubly in the affection of love and in the community of life's experience.

The reason for the double request following כִּי, abstracted from the individual case, rises to the universality of the fact realized by experience, which specializes itself herein, and celebrates the praise of love; for, assigning a reason for her “set me,” she does not say, “my love,” nor “thy love,” but אהֲבָה, “love” (as also in the address at Son 7:7). She means love undivided, unfeigned, entire, and not transient, but enduring; thus true and genuine love, such as is real, what the word denotes, which exhausts the conception corresponding to the idea of love.

קִנְאָה, which is here parallel to “love,” is the jealousy of love asserting its possession and right of property; the reaction of love against any diminution of its possession, against any reserve in its response, the “self-vindication of angry love.”

(Note: Vid., my Prolegomena to Weber's Vom Zorne Gottes (1862), p. 35 ss.)

Love is a passion, i.e., a human affection, powerful and lasting, as it comes to light in “jealousy.” Zelus, as defined by Dav. Chyträus, est affectus mixtus ex amore et ira, cum videlicet amans aliquid irascitur illi, a quo laeditur res amata, wherefore here the adjectives עַזָּה (strong) and קָשָׁה (hard, inexorable, firm, severe) are respectively assigned to “love” and “jealousy,” as at Gen 49:7 to “anger” and “wrath.” It is much more remarkable that the energy of love, which, so to say, is the life of life, is compared to the energy of death and Hades; with at least equal right מִמָּוֶת and מִשְּׁאוֹל (might be used, for love scorns both, outlasts both, triumphs over both (Rom 8:38.; 1Co 15:54.). But the text does not speak of surpassing, but of equality; not of love and jealousy that they surpass death and Hades, but that they are equal to it. The point of comparison in both cases is to be obtained from the predicates. עַז, powerful, designates the person who, being assailed, cannot be overcome (Num 13:28), and, assailing, cannot be withstood (Jdg 14:18). Death is obviously thought of as the assailer (Jer 9:20), against which nothing can hold its ground, from which nothing can escape, to whose sceptre all must finally yield (vid., Ps 49). Love is like it in this, that it also seizes upon men with irresistible force (Böttcher: “He whom Death assails must die, whom Love assails must love”); and when she has once assailed him, she rests not till she has him wholly under her power; she kills him, as it were, in regard to everything else that is not the object of his love. קָשֶׁה, hard (opposed to רַךְ, 2Sa 3:39), σκληρός, designates one on whom no impression is made, who will not yield (Psa 48:4; Psa 19:4), or one whom stern fate has made inwardly stubborn and obtuse (1Sa 1:15). Here the point of comparison is inflexibility; for Sheol, thought of with שׁאל, to ask (vid., under Isa 5:14), is the God-ordained messenger of wrath, who inexorably gathers in all that are on the earth, and holds them fast when once they are swallowed up by him. So the jealousy of love wholly takes possession of the beloved object not only in arrest, but also in safe keeping; she holds her possession firmly, that it cannot be taken from her (Wisd. 2:1), and burns relentlessly and inexorably against any one who does injury to her possession (Pro 6:34 f.). But when Shulamith wishes, in the words, “set me,” etc., to be bound to the heart and to the arm of Solomon, has she in the clause assigning a reason the love in view with which she loves, or that with which she is loved? Certainly not the one to the exclusion of the other; but as certainly, first of all, the love with which she wishes to fill, and believes that she does fill, her beloved. If this is so, then with “for strong as death is love,” she gives herself up to this love on the condition that it confesses itself willing to live only for her, and to be as if dead for all others; and with “inexorable as hell is jealousy,” in such a manner that she takes shelter in the jealousy of this love against the occurrence of any fit of infidelity, since she consents therein to be wholly and completely absorbed by it.

To קנאה, which proceeds from the primary idea of a red glow, there is connected the further description of this love to the sheltering and protecting power of which she gives herself up: “its flames, רְשָׁפֶיהָ, are flames of fire;” its sparkling is the sparkling of fire. The verb רשף signifies, in Syr. and Arab., to creep along, to make short steps; in Heb. and Chald., to sparkle, to flame, which in Samar. is referred to impetuosity. Symmachus translates, after the Samar. (which Hitzig approves of): ἁι ὁρμαὶ αὐτοῦ ὁρμαὶ πύρινοι; the Venet., after Kimchi, ἄνθρακες, for he exchanges רֵשֶׁף with the probably non.-cogn. רִצְפָה; others render it all with words which denote the bright glancings of fire. רִשְׁפֵּי (so here, according to the Masora; on the contrary, at Psa 76:4, רִשְׁפֵּי) are effulgurations; the pred. says that these are not only of a bright shining, but of a fiery nature, which, as they proceed from fire, so also produce fire, for they set on fire and kindle.

(Note: The Phoen. Inscriptions, Citens. xxxvii., xxxviii., show a name for God, רשפי חץ, or merely רשף, which appears to correspond to Ζεὺς Κεραύνιος on the Inscriptions of Larnax (vid., Vogué's Mélanges Archéologiques, p. 19). רשפי are thus not the arrows themselves (Grätz), but these are, as it were, lightnings from His bow (Psa 76:4).)

Love, in its flashings up, is like fiery flashes of lightning; in short, it is שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה,

(Note: Thus in the Biblia Rabbinica and P. H. with the note מלהחדא ולא מפיק. Thus by Ben-Asher, who follows the Masora. Cf. Liber Psalmorum Hebr. atque Lat. p. 155, under Psa 118:5; and Kimchi, Wörterb., under אפל and שלהב. Ben-Naphtali, on the other hand, reads as two words, שַׁלְהֶבֶת יָהּ. [Except in this word, the recensions of Ben-Asher and Ben-Naphtali differ only “de punctis vocalibus et accentibus.” Strack's Prolegomena, p. 28.])

which is thus to be written as one word with ה raphatum, according to the Masora; but in this form of the word יה is also the name of God, and more than a meaningless superlative strengthening of the idea. As לֶהָבָה is formed from the Kal לָהַב to flame (R. לב, to lick, like לָהַט, R. לט, to twist), so is שַׁלְהֶבֶת, from the Shafel שִׁלְהֵב, to cause to flame; this active stem is frequently found, especially in the Aram., and has in the Assyr. almost wholly supplanted the Afel (vid., Schrader in Deut. Morg. Zeit. xxvi. 275). שׁלהבת is thus related primarily to להבה, as inflammatio to (Ger.) Flamme; יה thus presents itself the more naturally to be interpreted as gen. subjecti. Love of a right kind is a flame not kindled and inflamed by man (Job 20:26), but by God - the divinely-influenced free inclination of two souls to each other, and at the same time, as is now further said, Son 8:7, Son 8:7, a situation supporting all adversities and assaults, and a pure personal relation conditioned by nothing material. It is a fire-flame which mighty waters (רַבִּים, great and many, as at Hab 3:15; cf. עַזִּים, wild, Isa 43:16) cannot extinguish, and streams cannot overflow it (cf. Psa 69:3; Psa 124:4) or sweep it away (cf. Job 14:19; Isa 28:17). Hitzig adopts the latter signification, but the figure of the fire makes the former more natural; no heaping up of adverse circumstances can extinguish true love, as many waters extinguish elemental fire; no earthly power can suppress it by the strength of its assault, as streams drench all they sweep over in their flow - the flame of Jah is inextinguishable.

Nor can this love be bought; any attempt to buy it would be scorned and counted madness. The expressions is like Pro 6:30 f., cf. Num 22:18; 1Co 13:3. Regarding הוֹן (from הוּן, (Arab.) han, levem esse), convenience, and that by which life is made comfortable, vid., at Pro 1:13. According to the shepherd-hypothesis, here occurs the expression of the peculiar point of the story of the intercourse between Solomon and Shulamith; she scorns the offers of Solomon; her love is not to be bought, and it already belongs to another. But of offers we read nothing beyond Song Son 1:11, where, as in the following Son 8:12, it is manifest that Shulamith is in reality excited in love. Hitzig also remarks under Son 1:12 : “When the speaker says the fragrance of her nard is connected with the presence of the king, she means that only then does she smell the fragrance of nard, i.e., only his presence awakens in her heart pleasant sensations or sweet feelings.” Shulamith manifestly thus speaks, also emphasizing Son 6:12, the spontaneousness of her relation to Solomon; but Hitzig adds: “These words, Son 1:12, are certainly spoken by a court lady.” But the Song knows only a chorus of the “Daughters of Jerusalem” - that court lady is only a phantom, by means of which Hitzig's ingenuity seeks to prop up the shepherd-hypothesis, the weakness of which his penetration has discerned. As we understand the Song, Son 8:7 refers to the love with which Shulamith loves, as decidedly as Son 8:6 to the love with which she is loved. Nothing in all the world is able to separate her from loving the king; it is love to his person, not love called forth by a desire for riches which he disposes of, not even by the splendour of the position which awaited her, but free, responsive love with which she answered free love making its approach to her. The poet here represents Shulamith herself as expressing the idea of love embodied in her. That apple tree, where he awaked first love in her, is a witness of the renewal of their mutual covenant of love; and it is significant that only here, just directly here, where the idea of the whole is expressed more fully, and in a richer manner than at Son 7:7, is God denoted by His name, and that by His name as revealed in the history of redemption. Hitzig, Ewald, Olshausen, Böttcher, expand this concluding word, for the sake of rhythmic symmetry, to שַׁלְהֲבֹתֶיהָ שַׁלְהֲבֹת יָהּ its flames are flames of Jah; but a similar conclusion is found at Psa 24:6; Psa 48:7, and elsewhere.

“I would almost close the book,” says Herder in his Lied der Lieder (Song of Songs), 1778, “with this divine seal. It is even as good as closed, for what follows appears only as an appended echo.” Daniel Sanders (1845) closes it with Son 8:7, places Son 8:12 after Son 1:6, and cuts off Son 1:8-11, Son 1:13, Son 1:14, as not original. Anthologists, like Döpke and Magnus, who treat the Song as the Fragmentists do the Pentateuch, find here their confused medley sanctioned. Umbreit also, 1820, although as for the rest recognising the Song as a compact whole, explains Son 8:8-14 as a fragment, not belonging to the work itself. Hoelemann, however, in his Krone des Hohenliedes Crown of the Song, 1856 (thus he names the “concluding Act,” Son 8:5-14), believes that there is here represented, not only in Son 8:6, Son 8:7, but further also in Son 8:8-12, the essence of true love - what it is, and how it is won; and then in Son 8:13 f. he hears the Song come to an end in pure idyllic tones.

We see in Son 8:8 ff. the continuation of the love story practically idealized and set forth in dramatic figures. There is no inner necessity for this continuance. It shapes itself after that which has happened; and although in all history divine reason and moral ideas realize themselves, yet the material by means of which this is done consists of accidental circumstances and free actions passing thereby into reciprocal action. But Son 8:8 ff. is the actual continuance of the story on to the completed conclusion, not a mere appendix, which might be wanting without anything being thereby missed. For after the poet has set before us the loving pair as they wander arm in arm through the green pasture-land between Jezreel and Sunem till they reach the environs of the parental home, which reminds them of the commencement of their love relations, he cannot represent them as there turning back, but must present to us still a glimpse of what transpired on the occasion of their visit there. After that first Act of the concluding scene, there is yet wanting a second, to which the first points.