Song of Solomon 4.

¹Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, that descend from Mount Gilead. ²Your teeth are like a newly shorn flock, which have come up from the washing, where every one of them has twins. None is bereaved among them. ³Your lips are like scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil. ⁴Your neck is like David’s tower built for an armory, whereon a thousand shields hang, all the shields of the mighty men. ⁵Your two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, which feed among the lilies. ⁶Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, to the hill of frankincense. ⁷You are all beautiful, my love. There is no spot in you. ⁸Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, with me from Lebanon. Look from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards. ⁹You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck. ¹⁰How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine! The fragrance of your perfumes than all kinds of spices! ¹¹Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon. ¹²A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain. ¹³Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits: henna with spikenard plants, ¹⁴spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree; myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices, ¹⁵a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, flowing streams from Lebanon. Beloved ¹⁶Awake, north wind; and come, you south! Blow on my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and taste his precious fruits.

Commentary (3)

Adam Clarke

The bridegroom's description of his bride, her person, her accomplishments, her chastity, and her general excellence, vv. 1-16.

John Gill

INTRODUCTION TO SONG OF SOLOMON 4

In this chapter is contained a large commendation of the church's beauty by Christ; first, more particularly, by an enumeration of several parts, as her eyes, hair, teeth, lips, temples, neck, and breasts, Sol 4:1; and more generally, Sol 4:7; And having observed where he himself was determined to go, he invites her to go with him; which he enforces, partly from the danger she was exposed unto where she was Sol 4:6; and partly from the comeliness of her person and graces in his esteem; with which he was ravished, and therefore was extremely desirous of her company, Sol 4:9; And then enters into some new descriptions of her; as a garden and orchard, as a spring and fountain, Sol 4:12; all which she makes to be owing to him, Sol 4:15; And the chapter is closed with an order from Christ to the winds to blow on his garden, and cause the spices of it to flow out; and with an invitation of the church to Christ, to come into his garden, and relax there, Sol 4:16.

JFB

Contrast with the bride's state by nature (Isa 1:6) her state by grace (Sol 4:1-7), "perfect through His comeliness put upon her" (Eze 16:14; Joh 15:3). The praise of Jesus Christ, unlike that of the world, hurts not, but edifies; as His, not ours, is the glory (Joh 5:44; Rev 4:10-11). Seven features of beauty are specified (Sol 4:1-5) ("lips" and "speech" are but one feature, Sol 4:3), the number for perfection. To each of these is attached a comparison from nature: the resemblances consist not so much in outward likeness, as in the combined sensations of delight produced by contemplating these natural objects.

doves'--the large melting eye of the Syrian dove appears especially beautiful amid the foliage of its native groves: so the bride's "eyes within her locks" (Luk 7:44). MAURER for "locks," has "veil"; but locks suit the connection better: so the Hebrew is translated (Isa 47:2). The dove was the only bird counted "clean" for sacrifice. Once the heart was "the cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Grace makes the change.

eyes-- (Mat 6:22; Eph 1:18; contrast Mat 5:28; Eph 4:18; Jo1 2:16). Chaste and guileless ("harmless," Mat 10:16, Margin; Joh 1:47). John the Baptist, historically, was the "turtledove" (Sol 2:12), with eye directed to the coming Bridegroom: his Nazarite unshorn hair answers to "locks" (Joh 1:29, Joh 1:36).

hair . . . goats--The hair of goats in the East is fine like silk. As long hair is her glory, and marks her subjection to man (Co1 11:6-15), so the Nazarite's hair marked his subjection and separation unto God. (Compare Jdg 16:17, with Co2 6:17; Tit 2:14; Pe1 2:9). Jesus Christ cares for the minutest concerns of His saints (Mat 10:30).

appear from--literally, "that lie down from"; lying along the hillside, they seem to hang from it: a picture of the bride's hanging tresses.

Gilead--beyond Jordan: there stood "the heap of witness" (Gen 31:48).

Cross-references (96)

Verse 1

Verse 2

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Verse 16