Songofsolomon 4 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Traditionally the reign of Solomon, around 970 to 930 BC
Location
Israel, with images ranging north to Mount Lebanon and Mount Hermon and their leopard country
Audience
Ancient Israelites, who read and sang this as love poetry belonging to their sacred writings
Situation
The man praises his beloved from head to breast, comparing her hair to a flock coming down a hillside and her teeth to newly washed sheep. He then calls her a locked garden and a sealed spring, and she invites him into that garden.
Key Background
This head-to-toe praise poem follows a form scholars call the wasf, an Arabic word for description, known from later Near Eastern wedding songs where the bride's body is praised part by part. The comparisons work by movement and impression rather than shape, so a flock streaming down a slope conveys dark hair in motion. A walled garden with its own water source was rare private property in a dry land, and a seal on a well marked ownership, so calling her a locked garden speaks of exclusive belonging rather than mere restraint.
How you are, my — how utterly beautiful. Your eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair cascades like a flock of goats streaming down the slopes of
Your teeth are like a flock just shorn, coming up from the washing — each one with its twin, not one of them alone.
Your lips are a thread of scarlet, and your is lovely. Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a
Your neck is like the of David, built in courses of stone — a thousand hang upon it, all the armor of warriors.
Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, grazing among the
Before the day cool and the shadows slip away, I will go to the of myrrh, to the hill of frankincense.
Every of you is beautiful, my darling. There is no in you at all.
Come with me from my — come with me from Lebanon. Descend from the peak of Amana, from the summit of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountain haunts of leopards.
You have my my my — you have my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.
How sweet is your my sister, my bride — how much sweeter your than wine, and the fragrance of your perfumes than any
Your lips drip with my bride — honey and milk are under your tongue, and the scent of your garments is like the scent of
A is my sister, my bride — a a spring sealed.
Your are an orchard of pomegranates with the finest fruits — henna and
spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree — myrrh and aloes with all the finest spices.
You are a garden spring, a well of water, streams flowing down from
north wind — and come, south wind! Breathe upon my garden and let its fragrances drift out. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its