Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon 6

13 verses · Wisdom · Old Testament

1Where has your beloved gone, you fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you? 2My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies. 3I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies.
4You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. 5Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead. 6Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, which have come up from the washing, of which every one has twins; not one is bereaved among them. 7Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.
8There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number. 9My dove, my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother’s only daughter. She is the favorite one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines saw her, and they praised her.
10Who is she who looks out as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners?
11I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower. 12Without realizing it, my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots. 13Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you. Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of Mahanaim?

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1 commentator · 13 notes on this chapter

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176313

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women?.... The title is the same used by them, and by Christ before them, Sol 1:8; and here repeated, to assure her that they were serious in asking this question, and that it was in great respect to her they…

v. 2

My beloved is gone down into his garden,.... Which may be said by Solomon, in allusion to what he himself was wont to do, as Josephus (q) relates; who used to go very early in a morning in great pomp to Etham, about two miles from Jerusalem, a pleasant place…

v. 3

I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine,.... Expressive of interest in Christ, and union to him, and of her faith therein; which still continued, notwithstanding her unbecoming behavior toward Christ, and her many infirmities, Sol 5:2. Aben Ezra connects…

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