Chapter Six

1–3. The conclusion of the Bride’s conversation with the Jerusalem women about her Beloved. 4–10. New praises of Solomon for his chosen one. 11–12. The Beloved recounts some initial episode from the history of their love.

Song of Songs 6:1. “Where has your beloved gone, most beautiful of women? Where has your beloved turned? We will seek him with you. Song of Songs 6:2. My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies. Song of Songs 6:3. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine; he feeds among the lilies. In response to the Jerusalem women’s insincere, ironic question about the Bridegroom’s whereabouts (v. 1), the Beloved, in the spirit of Eastern wit, replies that he occupies himself only with love, gathering flowers for her, and in any case belongs entirely to her (vv. 2–3, cf. Song 2:16). The Midrash thus comments (p. 150) on the verses in question: “The nations of the world say to Israel: Where has your Beloved gone from Egypt, the sea, Sinai? Why are you asking me about him, – answered the congregation of Israel: what use is it to you to ask about him, what part do you have in him? I cannot, – since I have been united with him – leave Him or be separated from Him. Wherever He may be, He will come to me.”

Song of Songs 6:4. You are beautiful, my beloved, like Tirzah, lovely like Jerusalem, awe-inspiring like troops with banners. Song of Songs 6:5. Turn your eyes away from me, for they have captivated me. Your hair is like a flock of goats coming down from Gilead; Solomon’s praises of his Bride now begin with comparisons: for her virginal blooming beauty he compares her to Tirzah, for her attractiveness in aesthetic and moral respects to Jerusalem, for a certain impressiveness and inner strength to a formidable army. Tirzah (Onomast. 540) is a Canaanite city taken by Joshua (Josh 12:24), which under the kings of Israel from Jeroboam to Zimri was the capital and was taken by Omri (1 Sam 15:21); now the village of Talluzah, two hours to the northeast of Nablus (Shechem); it was famous for its beauty. The LXX and the Slavonic Vulgate replace the proper name Tirzah with a common noun: ευδοκια, acceptance; suavis. A tendency toward a common noun understanding of this name is also shown by the Midrash (p. 152), when it sees in the verse in question a reference “to the sacrifices through which the Israelites gained acceptance” (Lev 1:4). The comparison of the Bride with formidable troops, which appears also below (v. 10), indicates, it seems, the irresistibility of the Bride through the charms of love: rather, she herself has a kind of magical effect on her Beloved, v. 5.

Song of Songs 6:6. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes coming up from the washing, each of which has brought twins, and not one among them is bereaved; Song of Songs 6:7. Like a slice of pomegranate are your cheeks beneath your veil. Cf. Song 4:2-3.

Song of Songs 6:8. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and maidens without number, Song of Songs 6:9. But she is unique, my dove, my pure one; she is the only one of her mother, the favorite of her who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines also praised her. There is here an undisputable reference to the direct connection of the content of the Song of Songs to the history of the king of Israel Solomon: as in verse 8 here, so also in 1 Sam 11:1, we have testimony of the multitude of wives of Solomon; the smaller number of his wives shown in the Song of Songs, it seems, points to a comparatively early writing of our sacred book by Solomon—when polygamy had not yet developed in him to the degree of passion and was not yet accompanied by those baneful consequences that occurred in his old age (1 Sam 11:4). The mention of Solomon’s many wives is made for the purpose of marking the high superiority of the Shulammite over all of them; this superiority is recognized even by all her rivals (v. 9). In this respect the Shulammite shares the blessed fate of the “virtuous woman” Prov 31:28.

Song of Songs 6:10. Who is this who appears like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awe-inspiring like troops with banners? The sacred poet concludes his praise of the incomparable excellences of the Bride with a comparison of her to the most majestic phenomena of nature—the dawn, the moon, even the sun, followed by the comparison with formidable troops mentioned above (v. 4). This comparison, like Song 3:6 and Song 8:5, is clothed in the form of an interrogative exclamation: “who is this?”

Song of Songs 6:11. I went down to the nut garden to look at the verdure of the valley, to see if the vine had budded, if the pomegranates had bloomed. Song of Songs 6:12. I did not know how my soul moved me to the chariots of my people, a noble. A small section comprising these two verses with the addition of the 1st verse of Chapter VII appears especially dark and difficult to understand. Among the many different interpretations of this passage, we choose that according to which an event from the life of the Shulammite is described here, immediately preceding her being taken to Solomon’s court. “The nut garden,” Heb. ginnat-egoz (v. 11), was certainly located in the homeland of the Shulammite: according to Josephus (Bell. Ind. III, 10, 8), nut trees grew along the banks of the Sea of Tiberias, consequently near Shunem—the home of the Shulammite. V. 12. “Chariots” is a symbol of royal splendor and luxury (cf. 1 Sam 8:11); to be drawn or placed in one of such chariots means to be raised from a lowly condition to a state of direct proximity to the king (cf. Gen 41:43). Thus, here the Shulammite, transferring her thought into the distant past, as it were questions how the sharp change that took place in her fate occurred—the transition from the position of a simple peasant to the position of the king’s bride and then queen. The Hebrew text’s expression “ammi-nariav” is translated by the LXX, Slavonic, and Vulgate into the proper name Aminadab (cf. Exod 6:23; Num 1:7; Ruth 4:19 and others), and some ancient interpreters strangely saw in it the name of the devil. In reality, however, following the Russian Synodal translation and the translation of Archimandrite Makarios (“the chariots of the noble in my people”), one must read in the Heb. text two words: ammi-nadiv—of common noun meaning (as below in Song 7:2) and see in the verse in question the general thought of the luxury of court life, where the word nadiv can have a disapproving tone (in the sense of a tyrant or oppressor, as in Job 21:28; Isa 13:2).