Song of Solomon 2:5
in Song of Solomon 2Sustain me with raisins; refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Stay ye me with raisins, refresh me with apples; For I am sick from love.
KJV
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.
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This verse in Song of Solomon 2
Commentary
18 notes on this verseThe Word of God inflicts a wound, but it does not produce a sore. There is a wound of righteous love, there are wounds of charity, as she has said, "I am wounded with love." The one who is perfect is wounded with love. Therefore the wounds of the Word are good, and good are the wounds of the lover.
This site's exposition
I am sick of love
on Song of Solomon 2:5-6
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love asks for the ordinary refreshments of the orchard and the winepress to steady a longing the poem treats as overwhelming rather than shameful, love itself named the sickness. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me pictures an actual embrace, the same line returning later in the poem at 8:3 to close the same thought. Gill reads the sickness of love as a figure later generations applied to the soul's longing for Christ, a reading named as the tradition's own beside the plain sense of desire answered by nearness.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers5 voices
A commentator
Augustine of HippoEXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 45:14 · Written in the 5th century.
proposed
In the Song of Songs it is said, "I am wounded with love"; that is, of being in love, of being inflamed with passion, of sighing for the bridegroom, from whom she received the arrow of the Word.
The wound of love is health-giving. The bride of Christ sings in the Song of Songs, "I am wounded with charity." When is this wound healed? When our desire is sated with good things. It's called a wound as long as we desire and don't yet have. Love, you see, in that case, is the same as if it were a pain. When we get there, when we have what we desire, the pain disappears, the love doesn't cease.
The love of eternal life sprouts from the love of knowledge, as does the ability to endure persecution from the love of eternal life, and the virtue of fortitude from persecution, and the perfected glory of martyrdom from fortitude.
What reflection is sweeter than the thought of the magnificence of God? What desire of the soul is so poignant and so intolerably keen as that desire implanted by God in a soul purified from all vice and affirming with sincerity, "I languish with love." Totally ineffable and indescribable are the lightning flashes of divine Beauty.
The church proclaims in the Song of Songs, "I am wounded by love." So the holy people pray to be pierced by the fear of the Lord, so that by dying they may live, whereas earlier by living they were dying.
11 more voices on this verse
The Medieval Church6 voices
A commentator
BonaventureCollations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 18 · Written in the 13th century.
proposed
In this garden, there is much walking about, for if one is not happy to remain in the first, he goes to the second, and likewise with the others. And so man is compassed about with apples. Hence, in the Canticle: "Stay me up with …
A commentator
Bernard of ClairvauxSermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 51 · Written before 1153.
proposed
How the Bride Asks That the Fruits of Good Works Be Heaped Up for Her Together with the Flowers and Fragrances of Faith; Likewise on Hope and Fear. 1. "Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples, because I languish with love" (Song 2:5). Love …
A commentator
Gregory the DialogistMorals on the Book of Job, Book 34, Paragraph 21 · Written before 604.
proposed
For what do we understand by 'arrows' but the words of preachers? For when they are drawn forth by the voice of holy livers, they transfix the hearts of the hearers. With these arrows Holy Church had been struck, who was saying, I am wounded with love.
Hence again the Church says in the Song of Songs: "I am wounded with love." For it is just that she should reach health from the sight of the physician, who bears the wound of love in her breast through the heat of her desire for him.
"Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples," etc. For the soul languishes with love when it truly tastes the ordered love of its Creator in itself, because when it is kindled to seek the light of eternity, it tires from the love of temporality, …
A commentator
Robert of TombelaineCommentary on the Song of Songs, Chapter 2 · Written in the 11th century.
proposed
By the tender and budding flowers, the beginning faithful are designated, but by the apples, the perfect faithful. For the Bride, because she languishes with love, desires to be supported with flowers and surrounded with apples, because while she afflicts herself with longing for eternity, …
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
Flaggons - With wine, which is a good cordial. Apples - With odouriferous apples, the smell whereof was grateful to persons ready to faint. By this understand the application of the promises, and the quickening influences of the Spirit.
Oh how much better it is with the soul when it is sick of love to Christ than when it is surfeited with the love of this world! She cries out for cordials: "Oh stay me with flagons, or ointments, or flowers, any thing that is reviving; comfort me with apples, with the fruits of that apple-tree, Christ (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens+odd-straight-quotes
Stay me with flagons,.... Of wine, which is a supporter of the animal spirits (w).
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
Stay me with flagons - I believe the original words mean some kind of cordials with which we are unacquainted. The versions in general understand some kind of ointment or perfumes by the first term. I suppose the good man was perfectly sincere who took this for his text, and, after having repeated, Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love sat down, perfectly overwhelmed with his own feelings, and was not able to proceed! But while we admit such a person’s sincerity, who can help questioning his judgment?
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
flagons--MAURER prefers translating, "dried raisin cakes"; from the Hebrew root "fire," namely, dried by heat. But the "house of wine" (So 2:4, Margin) favors "flagons"; the "new wine" of the kingdom, the Spirit of Jesus Christ. apples--from the tree (So 2:3), so sweet to her, the promises of God. sick of love--the highest degree of sensible enjoyment that can be attained here.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase
The words behind it
8 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| סַמְּכ֙וּנִי֙ | samekhuni | sustain me | H5564 → | |
| בָּֽאֲשִׁישׁ֔וֹת | baashishot | with <the> raisin-cakes | H809 → | |
| רַפְּד֖וּנִי | rapeduni | refresh me | H7502 → | |
| בַּתַּפּוּחִ֑ים | batapuchim | with <the> apples | H8598 → | 6 times |
| כִּי־ | ki- | for | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| חוֹלַ֥ת | cholat | [am] weak of | H2470 → | |
| אַהֲבָ֖ה | ʾahavah | love | H160 → | 38 times |
| אָֽנִי׃ | ʾani | I | H589 → | 874 times |
סַמְּכ֙וּנִי֙sustain me
samekhuniH5564 →
בָּֽאֲשִׁישׁ֔וֹתwith <the> raisin-cakes
baashishotH809 →
רַפְּד֖וּנִיrefresh me
rapeduniH7502 →
בַּתַּפּוּחִ֑יםwith <the> apples
batapuchimH8598 →6 times
כִּי־for
ki-H3588 →4482 times
חוֹלַ֥ת[am] weak of
cholatH2470 →
אַהֲבָ֖הlove
ʾahavahH160 →38 times
אָֽנִי׃I
ʾaniH589 →874 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Luke 24:32They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us as He spoke with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
it leads to
- Luke 24:45
Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
- Jeremiah 23:29
“Is not My word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that smashes a rock?”
- Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
- Psalms 39:3
My heart grew hot within me; as I mused, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue:
- Jeremiah 15:16
Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words became my joy and my heart’s delight. For I bear Your name, O LORD God of Hosts.
- Luke 24:45
Through
Hosea 3:1Then the LORD said to me, “Go show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn…
it leads to
- Jeremiah 3:12–14
Go, proclaim this message toward the north: ‘Return, O faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will no longer look on you with anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will not be…
- Isaiah 45:22
Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
- Jeremiah 3:12–14
Through
Song of Solomon 5:8O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you, if you find my beloved, tell him I am sick with love.
it leads to
- Song of Solomon 2:7
O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you by the gazelles and does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right.
- Song of Solomon 2:7
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Song of Solomon
This page draws on 19 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Ambrose of Milan, Concerning Virginity 14:91; Aponius, EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 3:44; Augustine of Hippo, EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 45:14; Augustine of Hippo, SERMON 298:2; Basil of Caesarea, THE LONG RULES 2; Bede, Commentary on the Song of Songs; Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 51; Bonaventure, Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 18; Cassiodorus, EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 119:120; Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book 34, Paragraph 21; Gregory the Dialogist, Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 25; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Robert of Tombelaine, Commentary on the Song of Songs, Chapter 2.