Song of Solomon 5: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The man says he has come into his garden, and voices call the lovers to eat and drink. The woman then tells of a night when she heard him knocking and answered that she had taken off her tunic and washed her feet. When she opened the door he was gone. She looked for him, and the watchmen beat her and took her cloak. She charges the daughters of Jerusalem, and when they ask what makes him different from any other, she describes him from head to feet.

Claim by Claim

1. 5:1
   • The man says he has come into his garden.
   • He addresses her as his sister.
   • He addresses her as his bride.
   • He says he has gathered his myrrh with his spice.
   • He says he has eaten his honeycomb with his honey.
   • He says he has drunk his wine with his milk.
   • A call goes out to friends to eat.
   • The friends are told to drink.
   • The friends are told to drink deeply, to the point of intoxication.
   • The ones addressed in the final call are named as lovers, or the word may mean love itself; the text is ambiguous.
2. 5:2
   • The woman says she is asleep.
   • She says her heart is awake.
   • She hears the sound of her beloved knocking.
   • Her beloved calls her to open to him.
   • He addresses her as his sister.
   • He addresses her as his darling.
   • He addresses her as his dove.
   • He addresses her as his flawless one.
   • He says his head is filled with dew.
   • He says his locks are filled with the drops of the night.
3. 5:3
   • She says she has taken off her tunic.
   • She asks how she should put it back on.
   • She says she has washed her feet.
   • She asks how she should soil them.
4. 5:4
   • Her beloved put his hand through the opening in the door.
   • Her inward parts stirred for him.
5. 5:5
   • She rose to open to her beloved.
   • Her hands dripped with myrrh.
   • Her fingers dripped with flowing myrrh.
   • The myrrh was upon the handles of the bolt.
6. 5:6
   • She opened to her beloved.
   • Her beloved had turned away and gone.
   • Her soul went out when he spoke.
   • She sought him.
   • She did not find him.
   • She called him.
   • He did not answer her.
7. 5:7
   • The watchmen who go about the city found her.
   • They struck her.
   • They wounded her.
   • The keepers of the walls took her wrap away from her.
8. 5:8
   • She puts the daughters of Jerusalem under oath.
   • The charge is conditional on their finding her beloved.
   • If they find him, they are to tell him that she is sick with love.
9. 5:9
   • The daughters ask what makes her beloved more than any other beloved.
   • They address her as the fairest among women.
   • They repeat the question of what makes her beloved more than another.
   • They ask this because she has put them under such an oath.
10. 5:10
    • Her beloved is dazzling white.
    • Her beloved is ruddy.
    • He stands out above ten thousand.
11. 5:11
    • His head is finest gold.
    • His locks are wavy.
    • His locks are black as a raven.
12. 5:12
    • His eyes are like doves beside channels of water.
    • His eyes are washed in milk.
    • His eyes are set in place; whether this means set like jewels in a mounting or sitting beside a full pool is ambiguous.
13. 5:13
    • His cheeks are like a bed of spice.
    • His cheeks yield perfumes; whether the image is of towers of perfume or of plants growing perfume is ambiguous.
    • His lips are lilies.
    • His lips drip flowing myrrh.
14. 5:14
    • His hands are rods of gold.
    • The gold is set with a precious stone whose identity is uncertain, rendered beryl.
    • His belly is a work of polished ivory.
    • The ivory is overlaid with sapphires.
15. 5:15
    • His legs are pillars of white stone.
    • The pillars are set on bases of fine gold.
    • His appearance is like Lebanon.
    • He is choice as the cedars.
16. 5:16
    • His mouth is sweetness itself.
    • All of him is desirable.
    • She says this one is her beloved.
    • She says this one is her friend.
    • She addresses the daughters of Jerusalem.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

5:1

The garden is the image the previous chapter builds: the woman is called a locked garden full of spices, and she invites her lover into it (4:12–16). Here he answers that invitation, so "my garden," the myrrh, honey, wine and milk all continue that picture rather than describing an actual meal. "My sister, my bride" is not a statement of family relation: in Egyptian and other ancient Near Eastern love poetry "sister" was a standard term of affection between lovers. Myrrh is a fragrant gum that seeps from a desert shrub, used as perfume and for scenting clothes and bedding. The closing line, "Eat, friends," is spoken by someone else again, the Hebrew text has no speaker labels anywhere in the Song, so who is talking, and where one voice stops and another starts, is worked out from grammar and is often disputed.

5:2

The Hebrew verb forms leave it open whether what follows is something happening, something remembered, or a dream, "I am asleep, but my heart is awake" sets up that uncertainty rather than resolving it. "My perfect one" translates a word meaning whole, unblemished, without fault. Dew soaking his hair means he has been standing outside in the open through the cold part of the night.

5:3

The robe is the light tunic worn next to the skin; taking it off is the last step before lying down, so she is undressed for the night. Feet were washed before bed because floors and streets were dirt and sandals left them filthy, getting up to cross the room to the door would undo both. The two questions are a lover's playful excuses, not a refusal.

5:4

Doors were barred from the inside with a wooden or metal bolt, and many had a hole cut through them so that a hand could reach in and work the bolt from outside. The King James "my bowels were moved" is literal: Hebrew located strong feeling in the inner organs the way English locates it in the heart or the stomach.

5:5

Liquid or "flowing" myrrh is the finest grade, thin enough to drip, and was used as a scented oil on the body. Whether her hands are wet because she has perfumed herself for bed, or because he has left perfume on the door handles, is left unsaid.

5:6

The Hebrew behind "my soul failed when he spake" is ambiguous: the word can mean "when he spoke" or "when he turned away," and the phrase itself literally reads "my life went out of me", a formula for the sensation of collapse or breathlessness.

5:7

The watchmen are the city's night guard, patrolling the streets and the tops of the walls; a woman alone outside after dark had no business there in their eyes. The garment they strip off her is a wrap or shawl worn over the tunic; the exact item is uncertain, but taking it from her in the street was a public humiliation as much as a theft.

5:8

"I charge you" is oath language (she is putting them under a formal obligation, the same words she uses at 2:7 and 3:5. The daughters of Jerusalem are the young women of the city, who act as a chorus in the Song: the woman speaks to them, and they answer back in the next verse. "Sick of love" in the King James means sick because of love) faint with longing, not tired of it; the sense of "sick of" has reversed since 1611.

5:9

"Fairest among women" means the most beautiful woman of all.

5:10

Verses 10 to 16 are a set poetic form: a head-to-foot catalogue praising the beloved's body part by part, of a kind found in ancient Egyptian and later Arabic wedding songs. The comparisons are to gold, ivory, jewels and marble, so the effect is of a costly statue rather than of a man described feature by feature realistically. "Radiant and ruddy" pairs a word for dazzling brightness with one for a reddish, healthy color; the same pair describes David when he is first seen. "Ten thousand" is a round poetic figure for an uncountable crowd, not a headcount.

5:11

A raven is a large black bird whose feathers shine almost blue in the sun. Saying hair is black as a raven means deep, glossy black.

5:12

"Bathed in milk" describes the whites of the eyes; "set in place" uses the language of a gem seated in its mounting, so the eyes sit in the face like jewels in a setting. The picture behind it is of doves at the water's edge, pale birds against the stream.

5:13

The flower translated "lily" is uncertain; the Hebrew word covers several showy flowers and may mean a red one such as the anemone or a lotus, which would suit the comparison to lips better than the white garden lily.

5:14

The stone called "beryl" here is the Hebrew tarshish, named for a distant trading port; its identity is not certain, suggestions include yellow topaz, chrysolite and a pale green beryl. The "sapphires" are almost certainly lapis lazuli, an opaque deep-blue stone flecked with gold, imported from far to the east; the clear blue gem now called sapphire was not known in the region at this date. The word rendered "body" covers the torso, and the image is of a carved ivory panel inlaid with blue stones.

5:15

The "bases" are the sockets or pedestals a column stands on, continuing the picture of a statue mounted on gold. Lebanon is the mountain range north of Israel, famous throughout the ancient world for its forests of enormous cedars, timber prized for palaces and temples, and a standard byword for height and grandeur.

5:16

The word translated "mouth" is literally the palate, and stands both for his kisses and for what he says. "Altogether lovely" means wholly desirable, every part of him. "My friend" translates a word for a close companion or confidant, set here deliberately alongside the language of desire.