The Bridegroom Admires the Bride
Study note
The bridegroom describes the bride's beauty from her feet upward, the opposite of his earlier description in chapter 4, which went from her head down. He calls her a 'prince's daughter,' honoring her noble character. Her graceful form is compared to fine jewelry, rounded goblets, fields of wheat, twin deer, ivory towers, clear pools of water, and the towering mountains of Lebanon. Her head is compared to Mount Carmel, a lush and majestic mountain. Her hair is like royal purple cloth. He compares her tall, graceful figure to a palm tree and speaks of climbing it to embrace her.
1 How lovely are your feet in sandals, daughter of a prince! The graceful curves of your body are like jewels shaped by the hands of a master artist. How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman.
2 Your waist is like a perfectly curved goblet that always has wine to offer. Your body is like a golden mound of wheat beautifully framed by lilies. Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies.
3 You are like two matching fawns, perfectly paired. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.
4 Your neck rises gracefully like a tower of ivory. Your eyes are as clear and sparkling as the pools of Heshbon near the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is as elegant as the tower of Lebanon that faces toward Damascus. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus.
5 Your head sits proudly like the crown of Mount Carmel, and your flowing hair is like luxurious purple fabric. Its beauty has captured the heart of the king. Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in the galleries.
6 You are so beautiful and so wonderful, my love! Everything about you is pure charm! How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!
7 You stand tall and graceful, like a palm tree reaching toward the sky, and your beauty is like its clusters of dates. This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.
8 I thought, "I want to climb that palm tree and enjoy its fruit." May your love be like sweet clusters on the vine, and may your breath carry the fragrance of the finest apples. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples;
9 May your kisses flow like the smoothest wine, pouring gently over my beloved's lips, gliding softly as we drift off to sleep. And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.
The Bride's Joyful Response
Study note
The bride responds with the third and deepest version of her declaration of belonging: 'I belong to my beloved, and his desire is for me.' Earlier she said 'My beloved is mine and I am his' (2:16), then 'I belong to my beloved and my beloved belongs to me' (6:3). Now she focuses entirely on his desire for her, showing her growing confidence in his love. She invites him to leave the city and go out together into the countryside, to see the vineyards blooming in spring. The mandrake plant was believed to be connected to love and fertility in the ancient world.
10 I belong to my beloved, and everything in him reaches out for me. I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.
11 Let us get away together, my beloved! Let us escape to the countryside and spend the night under the open sky in the villages. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
12 We will wake up early and visit the vineyards to see if the grapevines have sprouted, if the young blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates have begun to bloom. It is there that I will share all my love with you. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves.
13 The mandrake blossoms send out their perfume. Right outside our door is a feast of every kind of wonderful fruit. Some is freshly picked and some has been saved for a long time. I saved it all just for you, my beloved. The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.