Song of Solomon - Grace Notes

More documents

Recommendations

Info

SONG OF SOLOMON Page 26By C. F. Keil and F. Delitzscha Grace Notes studyflowers would be to her externally. To be ableto call him her beloved is her ornament; and tothink of him refreshes her like the mostfragrant flowers.Song 1:15. In this ardour of loving devotion,she must appear to the king so much the morebeautiful.15 Lo, thou art fair, my love.Lo, thou art fair; thine eyes are doves.This is a so-called comparatio decurtata, as wesay: feet like the gazelle, i.e., to which theswiftness of the gazelle’s feet belongs (Hab.3:19); but instead of “like doves,” for thecomparison mounts up to equalization, theexpression is directly, “doves.” If the pupil ofthe eye were compared with the feathers of thedove (Hitz.), or the sprightliness of the eye withthe lively motion hither and thither of the dove(Heiligst.), then the eulogium would stand outof connection with what Shulamith has justsaid. But it stands in reference to it if her eyesare called doves; and so the likeness to doves’eyes is attributed to them, because purity andgentleness, longing and simplicity, expressthemselves therein. The dove is, like the myrtle,rose, and apple, an attribute of the goddess oflove, and a figure of that which is trulywomanly; wherefore יְׁמִ‏ ימָ‏ ה (the Arab. name of adove), Columbina, and the like names ofwomen, columba and columbari, are words offondness and caressing. Shulamith gives back toSolomon his eulogium, and rejoices in theprospect of spending her life in fellowship withhim.16 Behold, thou art comely, my beloved; yeacharming;Yea, our couch is luxuriously green.17 The beams of our house are cedars,Our wainscot of cypresses.Song 1:16, 17. If v. 16 were not the echo of herheart to Solomon, but if she therewith meantsome other one, then the poet should at leastnot have used נְָׁך ‏,הִ‏ but נֵ‏ ה ‏.הִ‏ Hitzig remarks, thatup to “my beloved” the words appear as thoseנָעִ‏ ים of mutual politeness—that therefore(charming) is added at once to distinguish herbeloved from the king, who is to herinsufferable. But if a man and a woman aretogether, and he says הִ‏ נְָך and she says נְָׁך ‏,הִ‏ thatis as certainly an interchange of address as thatone and one are two and not three. He praisesher beauty; but in her eyes it is rather he who isbeautiful, yea charming: she rejoicesbeforehand in that which is assigned to her.Where else would her conjugal happiness findits home but among her own rural scenes? Thecity with its noisy display does not please her;and she knows, indeed, that her beloved is aking, but she thinks of him as a shepherd.Therefore she praises the fresh green of theirfuture homestead; cedar tops will form the roofof the house in which they dwell, and cypressesits wainscot. The bed, and particularly thebridal-bower (D. M. Z. xxii. 153),—but notmerely the bed in which one sleeps, but also thecushion for rest, the divan (Amos 6:4),—has thename רֶּ‏ ש ‏,עֶּ‏ from רַ‏ ש ‏,עָ‏ to cover over; cf. the“network of goats’ hair” (1 Sam. 19:13) and theπε of Holofernes (Judith 10:21; 13:9),(whence our kanapee = canopy), a bed coveredover for protection against the ώ πες, thegnats. עֲ‏ נַ‏ ן ‏,רַ‏ whence here the fem. adj. accentedon the ult., is not a word of colour, but signifiesto be extensible, and to extend far and wide, aslentus in lenti salices; we have no word such asthis which combines in itself the ideas ofsoftness and juicy freshness, of bending andelasticity, of looseness, and thus of overhangingramification (as in the case of the weepingwillow). The beams are called ‏,קֹרות from רָ‏ ה ‏,קָ‏ tomeet, to lay crosswise, to hold together (cf.congingere and contignare). רָ‏ חִ‏ יטֵ‏ נּו (afteranother reading, ח׳ ‏,רַ‏ from חִ‏ יט ‏,רָ‏ with Kametzimmutable, or a virtual Dag.) is North Palest. =(Ex. troughs ‏,רְׁ‏ הָ‏ טִ‏ ים (Kerî), for in place of רהִ‏ ׳2:16), the Samarit. has רחטים (cf. sahar andsahhar, circumire, zahar and zahhar, whencethe Syr. name of scarlet); here the word, if it isnot defect. plur. (Heiligst.), is used as collect.sing. of the hollows or panels of a wainscotedceiling, like φά , whence the LXX φ ώ
SONG OF SOLOMON Page 27By C. F. Keil and F. Delitzscha Grace Notes study(Symm. φ ώσε ς), and like lacunae, whencelacunaria, for which Jerome has here laquearia,which equally denotes the wainscot ceiling.‏,מרזבים Abulwalîd glosses the word rightly bygutters (from הַ‏ ט ‏,רָ‏ to run); only this and ἱά of the Gr. Venet. is not anarchitectural expression, like ‏,רהיטים which isstill found in the Talm. (vid., Buxtorf’s Lex.). To‏,חָ‏ רַ‏ ט from ‏,חריטנו suppose a transposition fromto turn, to carve (Ew., Heiligst., Hitz.), isבְׁ‏ רותִ‏ ים in ת accordingly not necessary. As thebelongs to the North Palest. (Galilean) form ofspeech, so also ח for ה in this word: an exchangeof the gutturals was characteristic of theGalilean idiom (vid., Talm. citations by Frankel,Einl. in d. jerus. Talm. 1870, 7b). Well knowingthat a mere hut was not suitable for the king,Shulamith’s fancy converts one of themagnificent nature-temples of the North Palest.forest-solitudes into a house where, oncetogether, they will live each for the other.Because it is a large house, although not largeby art, she styles it by the poet. plur. bāattenu.The mystical interpretation here finds in Isa.60:13 a favourable support.Song of Solomon 2Song 2:1. What Shulamith now further saysconfirms what had just been said. City andpalace with their splendour please her not;forest and field she delights in; she is a tenderflower that has grown up in the quietness ofrural life.1 I am a meadow-flower of Sharon,A lily of the valleys.We do not render: “the wild-flower,” “the lily,”… for she seeks to represent herself not as theone, but only as one of this class; thedefiniteness by means of the article sometimesbelongs exclusively to the second number of thegenit. word-chain. מלאך ה׳ may equally (vid., at1:11, Hitz. on Ps. 113:9, and my Comm. on Gen.9:20) mean “an angel” or “the angel of Jahve;”and בת׳ יש׳ “a virgin,” or “the virgin of Israel”(the personification of the people). Forhhăvatstsĕlĕth (perhaps from hhivtsēl, a denom.quadril. from bĕtsĕl, to form bulbs or bulbousknolls) the Syr. Pesh. (Isa. 35:1) useschamsaljotho, the meadow-saffron, colchicumautumnale; it is the flesh-coloured flower withleafless stem, which, when the grass is mown,decks in thousands the fields of warmerregions. They call it filius ante patrem, becausethe blossoms appear before the leaves and theseed-capsules, which develope themselves atthe close of winter under the ground. Shulamithcompares herself to such a simple and commonflower, and that to one in Sharon, i.e., in theregion known by that name. Sharon is peraphaer. derived from רון ‏.יְׁשָ‏ The most celebratedplain of this name is that situated on theMediterranean coast between Joppa andCaesarea; but there is also a trans-JordanicSharon, 1 Chron. 5:16; and according toEusebius and Jerome, there is also anotherdistrict of this name between Tabor and theLake of Tiberias, which is the one hereintended, because Shulamith is a Galilean: shecalls herself a flower from the neighbourhoodof Nazareth. Aquila translates: “A rosebud ofSharon;” but שושַ‏ נָ‏ ה (designedly here the fem.form of the name, which is also the name of awoman) does not mean the Rose which wasbrought at a later period from Armenia andPersia, as it appears, and cultivated in the East(India) and West (Palestine, Egypt, Europe). Itis nowhere mentioned in the canonicalScriptures, but is first found in Sir. 24:14;39:13; 50:8; Wisd. 2:8; and Esth. 1:6, LXX. Sinceall the rosaceae are five-leaved, and all theliliaceae are six-leaved, one might suppose,with Aben Ezra, that the name sosan (susan) isconnected with the numeral ש ‏,שֵ‏ and points tothe number of leaves, especially since one iswont to represent to himself the Eastern liliesas red. But they are not only red, or ratherviolet, but also white: the Moorish-Spanishazucena denotes the white lily. The root-word‏,שֵ‏ ש will thus, however, be the same as that ofbyssus, and יִש ‏,שַ‏ white marble. The comparison
Page 1 and 2: a Grace Notes courseSong of Solomon
Page 3: The AuthorsCarl Friedrich Keil (26
Page 8 and 9: SONG OF SOLOMON Page 8By C. F. Keil
Page 10 and 11: SONG OF SOLOMON Page 10By C. F. Kei
Page 35: SONG OF SOLOMON Page 35By C. F. Kei
Page 76 and 77:
SONG OF SOLOMON Page 76By C. F. Kei
Page 78 and 79:
Page 80 and 81:
Page 82 and 83:
Page 84 and 85:
Page 86 and 87:
Page 88 and 89:
Page 90 and 91:
Page 92 and 93:
Page 94 and 95:
Page 96 and 97:
Page 98 and 99:
Page 100 and 101:
SONG OF SOLOMON Page 100By C. F. Ke
Page 102 and 103:
Page 104 and 105:
Page 106 and 107:
Page 108 and 109:
show all

Song of Solomon - Grace Notes

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?