Song of Solomon6chapter 6

Song of Solomon 6:1-2

Whither is thy beloved gone: The daughters, moved by the portrait she has just given in chapter five, now ask where to find him themselves, whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women, that we may seek him with thee. She answers from inside the relationship rather than from geography, my beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies, the garden already established at 4:12-16 and 5:1 now confirming that nothing has actually broken between them. The commentators read the answer as proof the loss of chapter five was never final, since the daughters' question is met not with a search but with settled knowledge of where love already is.

Song of Solomon 6:3

I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine returns the mutual-possession formula of 2:16 in reversed order, hers named first this time, the second of the poem's three occurrences of the formula (2:16; 6:3; 7:10). He feedeth among the lilies closes the verse with the same shepherd picture used of him since 2:16, love stated in ordinary pastoral terms rather than escalating language. Delitzsch reads the shift, from my beloved is mine, and I am his at 2:16 to the order given here, as the text's own record of a love maturing from claiming toward being claimed, without treating the wording as more than the plain order the verse gives.

Song of Solomon 6:4

Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah: Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem opens a new praise song naming two capitals, Tirzah of the northern kingdom and Jerusalem of the southern, together rather than in rivalry, which the commentators read as reaching for the finest civic beauty the land offered rather than any comment on the kingdoms' later division. Terrible as an army with banners closes the verse, and it is the one place in the whole poem where fear and beauty are paired in the same breath, her beauty pictured as something that can overwhelm and command, not only please. Gill and Delitzsch both note the same pairing returns at 6:10, framing the court's own verdict on her later in the chapter.

Song of Solomon 6:5-7

Turn away thine eyes from me: Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me answers the beauty just named, the bridegroom asking relief from a gaze he cannot bear, an admission the poem's praise songs elsewhere do not make so directly. What follows repeats three images already given at 4:1-3 almost word for word, the flock of goats from Gilead, the shorn ewes each with her twin and none missing, the pomegranate temples, the poem returning to its own earlier praise rather than inventing new figures. Henry reads the repetition as deliberate, love returning to what it has already said because the words are still true, not because nothing new remains to say.

Song of Solomon 6:8-9

There are threescore queens: There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number sets a court's whole company beside her, and the number functions in the poem as a foil for what comes next rather than as a claim to be reckoned against any history. My dove, my undefiled is but one answers the crowd with singularity, she is the only one of her mother, the choice one of her that bare her, uniqueness measured against multitude rather than against any rival. The daughters saw her, and blessed her, yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her closes the verse with the court itself confirming the claim, praise coming even from those who might have had reason to withhold it.

Song of Solomon 6:10

looketh forth as the morning: Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners is read by most commentators as the queens' and concubines' own question following verse nine, their praise given in the same fear-and-beauty pairing already used of her at 6:4. The rising sequence, morning, moon, sun, each brighter than the last, builds praise the way the poem elsewhere builds its catalogues, by escalation rather than by a single image. Delitzsch reads the verse as the chapter's high point of external praise, spoken not by the bridegroom but by the very court that could have envied her instead.

Song of Solomon 6:11-12

I went down into the garden of nuts: I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley shifts the voice, most commentators reading it as hers again, an errand to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates budded, ordinary garden work continuing even inside the poem's praise. Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib is among the hardest lines in the book, and the commentators name rather than resolve the difficulty, some reading Amminadib as a proper name for a noble or a swift charioteer, some as a description, my willing people, and Delitzsch reading the line as an image of being carried away by desire before she had noticed the moment coming. No single reading is treated as settled, and the verse is left with its readings named rather than chosen.

Song of Solomon 6:13

Return, return, O Shulamite: Return, return, O Shulamite names her for the only time in the whole poem, and the commentators read the name two ways, a feminine form of Solomon's own name, marking her as his counterpart, or a woman of Shunem, tying her to a place rather than to him. What will ye see in the Shulamite, as it were the company of two armies closes the chapter on another difficult phrase, read variously as a dance figure, a martial image continuing the terrible as an army with banners language of verses four and ten, or a simple wonder at what there is to see in her. Gill and Delitzsch both hold the name to its two readings without settling between them, and the verse's obscurity is left as the text has it rather than resolved for the reader.