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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
See Son_5:1 ff for the passage quote with footnotes.
Son_8:1. O that thou wert as a brother of mine, ëְּàָç cannot possibly be taken as a simple vocative (Septuag., Luth.). It rather refers to a relation like that of a brother (“as a brother of mine,” comp. Psa_35:14) and consequently expresses the wish and that a wish seriously meant and speedily to be realized (vs. Weissb.), that Solomon would come so near to her in every respect, both inwardly and outwardly, that she could regard and treat him just as her own brother, as a member of her family, belonging to her own domestic household. The wish here expressed would have no meaning in respect to a lover of the rank of a shepherd. It most manifestly implies as its object a lover, whose whole station in life was above that of his beloved, in whose case there must be a coming down from his elevation, if an actual living communion is to subsist between him and her. For the fact of his having made his beloved a “queen” and a “prince’s daughter” is evidently without effect on the child-like and humble mind of this simple child of nature. She has not been able to prevail upon herself in addressing this proud lord of a harem, surrounded by his sixty queens and his eighty concubines, as well as by his female slaves, to call him her own with the same cordial confidence that a sister cherishes towards her brother. She has learned to call him ãּåֹã “beloved” but not àָç “brother,” often as he may since their marriage have addressed her as àֲçåֹúִé ëַìָּä “my sister, bride.” If this relation which she sustained to him be correctly estimated, Hengstenberg’s paraphrase of the exclamation before us “O that thou who art my brother, wouldst enter into a really brotherly relation to me” will appear to be by no means so absurd, as Weissb. would represent it.Were I to find thee without, I would kiss thee. “Without,” i.e. on the street or in the open country and in general wherever I must now observe a stiff courtly etiquette toward thee as king. A new protest therefore against the manners of the harem, which had become intolerable to her.—Yet none would despise me. ìֹàÎéָáֻæåּ ìִé they, viz. the people, would not despise and reproach me as though I were a vulgar wench who kissed strange men in the public street; comp Pro_7:12-13.
Son_8:2. I would lead thee, bring thee to my mother’s house. What she had only dreamed before Son_3:4, she can now utter to her lover as the burning wish of her heart, certain of its speedy accomplishment. àֶðְäָ ֽâְêָ “I would lead thee,” that is to say by the hand; whither is told by the following verb, which limits the one before it in the same way as àֶùָּׁ÷ְêָ does àֶîְöָàֲêָ in Son_8:1, b.—Thou wouldst instruct me. Again an indication that the lover is not a young shepherd but the wise and learned king Solomon, in comparison with whom Shulamith had long learned to feel her ignorance and at the same time her need of instruction from the rich stores of his mind. Feeling the incongruity of instruction by a lover, who was a mere shepherd, Hitz. has taken up again the conjecture of Ibn Ezra, that ùֶׁ · is to be supplied before úְּìַîְּãֵðִé and the verb thus converted into a relative clause is to be referred as a 3d pers. fem. to the preceding àִîִּé : “my mother who would teach me,” viz. how to do every thing for you in the best manner. But this is quite arbitrary; for all the verbs before and after are in the 2d pers. [?]; a verb thus extraordinarily interrupting this series must necessarily have been indicated not merely by ùֶׁ · or àֲùֶׁø but by an emphatic äִéà “she”; and to this äִéà would then have to be opposed an àֲðִé àַùְׁ÷ֶêָ etc. comp. (Böttcher Neue Aehrenl. III. 172). Most of the ancient versions confirm ours, which is the common view; and that the Sept. and Syr. in place of úְּìַîְּãֵðִé have mechanically repeated the last line of Son_3:4, can prove nothing against its correctness. I would give thee to drink of the spiced wine. That àַùְׁ÷ְêָ “I would cause thee to drink” contains an intentional allusion to àֶùָּׁ ֽ÷ְêָ “I would kiss thee,” Son_8:1, which is identical in its consonants, is an idle remark of Hitzig and Weissbach, which has little in its favor. Meier has needlessly taken this clause to be a statement of what her lover was to teach the speaker, “thou wouldst teach me how to make thee drink,” etc.; so too Ewald and Heiligst., according to whom the meaning is: “from thy mouth I would learn, what is pleasant and agreeable to thee, viz., to cause thee to drink,” etc. But all is simpler and in better taste if we assume no close relation between úְּìַîְּãֵðִé “thou wouldst instruct me” and this clause, and find nothing intimated here beyond the reciprocity subsisting between the spiritual gifts which the teacher confers, and the bodily refreshment which his pupil affords him in turn (comp. Luk_10:38 ff., 1Co_9:11; Gal_6:6).—By the spiced wine, of which she means to give him to drink, Shulamith probably means grape wine mixed with fragrant and pungent essences (according to a well-known oriental custom, comp. Döpke and Vaih., in loc). The definite article designates this wine as the well known drink of superior excellence, as the spiced wine par excellence; comp. éִéִï äַèּåֹá Son_7:10. Of my pomegranate juice. Notwithstanding the absence of the copula something different from the preceding is here intended and not the spiced wine itself, as though this were merely made from the juice of fruit (Hitzig). For such a difference is indicated by the use of òָñִéí “must, unfermented juice,” instead of the preceding éַéִï “wine,” as well as by the mention above of the vine along with the pomegranate (Son_7:13, comp. Son_6:11). The suffix in øִîּåֹðִé (for which the Vulg. and Syr. read øִîåֹðַé “my pomegranates”) is gen. of possession to òָñִéí (comp. äַø ÷ָãְùִׁé ) hence equivalent to “pomegranate wine prepared by me.” It makes against the view of Weissbach and others: “of the wine of my pomegranate tree,” that according to Son_6:11; Son_7:13, Shulamith had more than one such tree.—The ancients called the fermented juice of pomegranates “wine,” as appears from Plin. H. N. 14, Song 16: “Vinum fit—e punicis, quod rhoiden ( ῥïéÜ , pomegranate) vocant”; comp. Winer R.- W.- B. Art. “Wein.”
Son_8:3. His left hand (is) under my head and his right embraces me. This verse is not a mere phrase to mark the termination of a section, and unconnected with what precedes (Hitzig). It rather stands in the same sort of connection with the detailed description given Son_7:13 ff. of what the two lovers would do and enjoy together in Shulamith’s home, that Son_2:6 does with the preceding representation of their mutual enjoyment of nature and of love, Son_1:16 ff.; Son_2:3 ff. Only there Shulamith was depicting the present, whilst here she vividly portrays joys belonging to the future; though not in an optative form, as Ewald, Vaih., etc., assume without sufficient reason.
Son_8:4. I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem,etc.—On the significance of this exclamation here as Shulamith’s farewell to the daughters of Jerusalem (which Hitzig too has seen with substantial correctness), see on Son_2:7 above. Only it is not necessary with Vaih. to impute the brevity of its form to the excited and reproachful tone in which Shulamith, who had been affronted by the ladies of the court, here speaks.
2. The proper antithesis to such excesses can surely not lie in banishing with the profane-erotic exegesis every thing sacred from the course of the action here presented, and converting it, as is done particularly by Hitzig and Renan, into a succession of voluptuous scenes in the harem, without order or progress. This view becomes really repulsive, especially where it maintains that the poet brings Solomon’s love for other favorites than Shulamith before his readers or spectators by a detailed description of his amorous intercourse with them; that he describes with particularity by word and act how the king turns wearied away from the coy Shulamith, to “indemnify” himself with the other beauties of his harem. Hitzig’s exegesis on the passage Son_7:2-11 based on this understanding of it, even Böttcher indignantly pronounces one that “culminates in the disgustingly vulgar,”—a judgment that might with equal reason be passed upon Renan’s treatment of the same section. But even in its more moderate form, as advanced by Herder, Umbr., Ew., Vaih., etc., the shepherd hypothesis invariably involves much that is of doubtful morality, by which the religious and ethical character of the section before us is sensibly damaged in several points. Solomon’s character especially suffers more than is just, inasmuch as there is heaped upon him besides the reproach of polygamy with its excesses, that of an assiduous attempt at seduction and a corrupting assault upon female innocence, an actually adulterous procedure therefore,—which especially in the so-called “final assault,” Son_7:2-10, comes into unseemly contrast with the alleged fidelity of the maiden to a distant lover. Shulamith’s character, too, appears on this view less fair and great than in ours; the extravagance, not to say the braggart character of the description given of her lover, Son_5:10-16, if this refers to a plain young shepherd, is particularly offensive; so is the excited pathos of the appeal which, according to this view, is directed to a far distant lover to go with her into the country, Son_7:12 ff. Some of the finest and loveliest traits in the picture of this noble woman are wholly lost, especially the symbolic significance of her dream, Son_5:2-7; the lovely gentleness with which she seeks by her evasive answer in Son_6:2-3, to excuse her absent husband; the adroitness with which she interrupts him (Son_7:10) in order wholly to disarm and captivate him; the genuine womanly naiveté with which, in her picture of the innocent joys of their life together in the country, she inserts, Son_8:2, a hint of the instruction which she hopes to receive from her lover, etc.
3. The typical Messianic view avoids these faults in a manner which really satisfies both the æsthetic and the religious feeling. It throughout gives due prominence alike to light and shade, and while it sets forth in all its rigor the conflict of the lovely, chaste and pure child of nature with the corrupt manners of the court and her royal lover who shared them, it nevertheless paves the way likewise for a truly blessed reconciliation and removal of this conflict by showing how Shulamith’s urgency to return to her country home, lays the foundation for a change of mind in her husband, and for satisfying her boldest and highest wishes. The true power of love in the humble maiden thus shines in its most glorious light, and the lover who at first resisted is drawn along by it; his resistance to the sanctity of the marriage connection is overcome by the purity of her feelings.—When put in a parallel with the relation of Christ to His Church, this episode from the story of the love of Solomon and Shulamith certainly exhibits more disparity than resemblance. But it forms also just that section of the story, in which the dissimilarity of the two relations must naturally come most strongly out, in some parts of it almost to the obliteration of every trace of similitude. And yet there remain even here significant analogies enough to establish the essentially Messianic character of the whole. Above all the glowing description of the beauty of the lover, Son_5:10-16, which is only applicable to Solomon, not to any of his subjects, points to the King of all kings as the heavenly prototype of that king, as the possessor of an eternal glory which far outshines the splendor of the earthly Solomon. Mankind seeking after God, and craving His salvation, the antitype in the history of redemption of the earthly Shulamith, by its earnest and continued longing, waiting, entreating and imploring, succeeds in moving this heavenly Solomon to give up his glory and enter into its low estate, as she moves her lord and king to the resolve to live with her in her mother’s house, and to partake with her of all the simple country enjoyments and pleasures which this house, with its surroundings, could offer him and her. In this parallel there certainly lies a prophecy of the fulfilling of that which is written, Joh_14:23, “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him;” likewise of 2Co_6:16 (Lev_26:11; Heb_8:10), “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people;” as well as of Rev_21:3, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and He himself, God with them, shall be their God.” That significant phrase too, “thou wouldst instruct me,” Son_8:2, points to the higher stage of divine revelation to which mankind has been exalted under the New Testament, in the same manner as Isa_54:13 (Joh_6:45): “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord;” or as Jer_31:33 (Heb_8:10 ff.): “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts;—and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord,” (comp. Joe_3:1 f.; Act_2:16 f.; 1Jn_2:27, etc.).—But certainly,—and herein lies the exaltation of the New Testament Solomon above the Old, and the superiority of the New Testament covenant of grace, as compared with the marriage covenant between Solomon and Shulamith—no express entreaty with flattering words and persistent supplication was needed to bring down the Lord of the New Covenant to His own. Even if here and there in His parables He assumes the air of the reluctant friend or the unmerciful judge, and thus seems to impose upon His own people the duty of importunate begging and crying (Luk_11:5-8; Luk_18:1-7), this is purposely done that the contrast between human hard-heartedness and His own infinitely merciful and prevenient love, may induce to a heartier confidence in the latter. His becoming poor in order to make us rich, His emptying and humbling Himself to the form of a servant was prevenient throughout, with no merit or worthiness on the part of man; yea, so that He “was found of them that sought Him not, and was made manifest unto them that asked not after Him” (Rom_10:20; Isa_65:1). Of His coming to His own it may in truth be said:
“You do not need to labor,
Nor struggle day and night,
To bring Him down from heaven,
By efforts of your might.
He comes of His own motion,
Is full of love and grace,
Your every grief and sorrow
He’ll utterly efface.”
And besides it is a real and substantial glory, which He gives up and forsakes from love to the poor children of men, not a mere seeming glory, full of sin and vanity, like that of the earthly Solomon. His love to the poor damsel of earth is so utterly unselfish that He gives everything and receives nothing, whilst she can give nothing but only receive (comp. St. Francis of Assisi’s fable of the rich king Christ, and the fair damsel “Poverty”). Nay, she does not even possess as her own those “excellent fruits, new and old,” with which she was to regale her gracious and heavenly guest upon his entrance into her mother’s house. But it is her lover, and He alone, who makes the seed of His divine word bring forth in her good and worthy fruit, which endureth unto everlasting life. It is He alone who makes her rich in all the fruits of the Spirit and of righteousness (Php_1:11; Gal_5:22, etc.). He alone distributes the precious wine of joy at the table of His grace, by which He solemnly seals and confirms with His earthly bride, the covenant of His love, established by His bloody sacrificial death (comp. Joh_2:1-11). And while Shulamith’s entreaty of her royal lord and husband “O that thou wert like my brother, who sucked the breasts of my mother” (Son_8:1) can only be made in the most restricted sense,—while she, upon a calm and sober view of the case at least, can expect no more than a transient coming down of her lover into her poverty and retirement, the heavenly bridegroom of the Church, on the contrary, comes not only once and in the fullest truth, but for ever as our brother on the earth. He “is not ashamed to call all them, whom He redeems, His brethren” (Heb_2:11; comp. Joh_20:17). He is made partaker of their earthly flesh and blood in order to raise them from being slaves of sin and death to be children of God and heirs of His eternal, heavenly blessedness (Heb_2:14-15; Joh_8:32-36).—Thus set in the light of His deeds of redeeming love, this section of the Canticles becomes a song of praise to the grace of the Lord, which worketh all in all, a hymn of glory to that inscrutable mystery of the Divine mercy, of which Paul exclaims, Rom_11:34 f.: “For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”