Song of Solomon 7: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The man praises the woman from her feet upward, comparing her to jewels, wheat, fawns, towers, pools, and Mount Carmel, and says the king is held captive by her hair. He says he will climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit. She answers that she belongs to the man she loves and that his desire is for her, and calls him out to the fields and the villages, where she will give him her love.

Claim by Claim

1. 7:1
   • The speaker exclaims that her feet in sandals are beautiful.
   • She is addressed as a nobleman's daughter.
   • The curves of her thighs are like ornaments.
   • Those ornaments are the work of a craftsman's hands.
2. 7:2
   • Her navel is like a rounded bowl.
   • That bowl never lacks mixed wine.
   • Her belly is like a heap of wheat.
   • The heap of wheat is encircled with lilies.
3. 7:3
   • Her two breasts are like two fawns.
   • The fawns are twins of a gazelle.
4. 7:4
   • Her neck is like a tower of ivory.
   • Her eyes are like the pools in Heshbon.
   • Those pools are by the gate of Bath-rabbim.
   • Her nose is like the tower of Lebanon.
   • That tower faces toward Damascus.
5. 7:5
   • Her head upon her is like Carmel.
   • The hair of her head is like purple.
   • A king is held captive.
   • He is held in the flowing locks, the term for which is uncertain and may mean troughs or tresses.
6. 7:6
   • The speaker exclaims how fair she is.
   • The speaker exclaims how pleasant she is.
   • He addresses her as love.
   • She is fair and pleasant amid delights.
7. 7:7
   • Her stature is like a palm tree.
   • Her breasts are like clusters of fruit.
8. 7:8
   • The speaker said he would go up into the palm tree.
   • He said he would take hold of its fruit stalks.
   • He asks that her breasts be like clusters of the vine.
   • He asks that the fragrance of her nose, which may also mean her breath, be like apples.
9. 7:9
   • Her palate is like the best wine.
   • The wine goes for her beloved.
   • The wine goes down smoothly.
   • The wine causes the lips of sleepers to speak.
10. 7:10
    • She belongs to her beloved.
    • His desire is toward her.
11. 7:11
    • She calls her beloved to come.
    • She proposes that they go out into the open country.
    • She proposes that they lodge among the villages, the word being ambiguous and possibly meaning henna blossoms.
12. 7:12
    • She proposes that they go early to the vineyards.
    • She proposes to see whether the vine has budded.
    • She proposes to see whether the blossom has opened.
    • She proposes to see whether the pomegranates are in bloom.
    • There she will give him her love.
13. 7:13
    • The mandrakes give off a fragrance.
    • At their doors are all choice fruits.
    • The fruits are both new and old.
    • She has stored them up for her beloved.
    • She addresses him as her beloved.

Words Worth Explaining

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

7:1

In this culture most ordinary people went barefoot or wore plain sandals; finely made sandals marked wealth and rank, which is why the compliment runs together with "daughter of a prince." The phrase need not mean she is literally royal: it is praise of her bearing.

7:2

"Mixed wine" was wine blended with water and spices, the way good wine was normally served at a feast; it was the choice drink, not a diluted one. The mound of wheat is the heap of threshed grain piled at harvest, sometimes ringed with flowers, so the image is of pale gold, plenty, and pleasing shape. The Hebrew word rendered "navel" usually means just that, though some take it as a discreet way of naming the lower body generally.

7:3

A gazelle is a small, slender wild antelope common in the region; its young were a byword for grace and softness.

7:4

Ivory was an imported luxury, used as inlay on fine furniture and buildings rather than in solid blocks, the point is smooth, pale, costly. Heshbon was a city east of the Jordan, known for its water reservoirs; Bath-rabbim was one of its gates. The "tower of Lebanon" was a watchtower or fortress in the northern hills looking out toward Damascus, the chief city of Syria; the comparison is to a straight, commanding landmark, not to size.

7:5

Mount Carmel is the high wooded ridge that juts into the Mediterranean on the northern coast, a landmark that rises abruptly above everything around it. Purple cloth was dyed with a costly dye extracted from sea snails and was worn by royalty and the very rich; the comparison is to the dark sheen and the expense, not to the literal color of her hair.

7:7

The palm here is the date palm, tall and straight with a single unbranched trunk; the "clusters" are the heavy bunches of dates that hang beneath its crown.

7:8

The Hebrew word translated "apples" names a sweet, fragrant fruit whose exact identity is uncertain; some take it as the apricot, since apples as we know them grew poorly in that climate. "The smell of your nose" in the King James is the older way of saying the scent of her breath.

7:9

The Hebrew of the last phrase is difficult and has been read two ways: as wine gliding over "the lips of sleepers," or, with a slightly different reading of the same consonants, as wine gliding over "lips and teeth." Ancient translations differ, and the ambiguity is in the original, not in the English. Many readers also take the second half of this verse as the woman breaking in and finishing the man's sentence, since she is clearly the speaker by verse 10.

7:11

The Hebrew word behind "villages" is spelled the same as the word for henna bushes, so the line can mean either spending the night in the country settlements or lying down among the flowering shrubs. Translators are divided.

7:12

This is a spring outing: the vine budding and the pomegranate flowering both belong to the same short season, so the couple are going out to see the year's first growth. The pomegranate is a fruit with tough red skin and many juicy seeds inside, and its blossom is bright scarlet.

7:13

The mandrake is a low plant with a thick forked root and small yellow fruit that gives off a strong, sweet smell. In the ancient world it was widely believed to stir sexual desire and to help a woman conceive, the same belief lies behind the bargain over mandrakes in Genesis 30.