1 How graceful are your feet in sandals, O queenly maiden! Your joined thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. 2 Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. 3 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. 4 Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus. 5 Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses. 6 How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden! 7 You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. 8 I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, 9 and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth. 10 I am my beloveds, and his desire is for me. 11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages; 12 let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. 13 The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and over our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.
Commentary on Song of Songs 7
7:1-9 Everything said so far indicates the beauty of the human bride. But literally this parable signifies the beauty of the spiritual bride during the time of the New Testament. (Nicholas of Lyra) These are words from the Lord who gives a spiritual description of the Church from both Jews and Gentiles after the conversion of the Jews who had been faithless. (St. Bede)
7:1 graceful are your feet: by walking in accordance with the evangelical counsels. joined thighs: that is, the union of Jews and Gentiles in one Church of Christ. (Nicholas of Lyra)
7:3 two breasts: see note on 4:5. twins: on account of harmony. (Alcuin)
7:4 nose is like a tower of Lebanon: By the nose, also, we discern between odours and stenches. What, then, is signified by the nose of the Church but the foreseeing discernment of Saints? It is also said to be like to the tower that is in Lebanon, because their discerning foresight is so set on a height as to see the struggles of temptations even before they come, and to stand fortified against them when they do come. (St. Gregory the Great) overlooking Damascus: which was a city of the Syrians who frequently were enemies of the Jews. (Nicholas of Lyra) By Damascus is signified the whole multitude of demons, or evil men. (St. Bede)
7:5 Carmel: The head is the high point of the body, and well |
placed, just as Mt. Carmel in the Promised Land, which was a delightful and fruitful place. crowns: the crown of Christ's head, namely, his divinity, from which flow the intellectual and emotional qualities of the spiritual life, first into Christ according to his human nature, and then into all the members of his Church. (Nicholas of Lyra)
7:10 The Bride, therefore, hearing these praises, inflamed with love, interrupts here, as it were, the Bridegroom thus. (Theodoret of Cyrus)
7:11-12 Next the spread of faith in Christ is described. It began in Jerusalem, and from there it was dispersed to other parts of the world just as Isaiah prophesied in 2:3: "For the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Christ himself told his apostles in Acts 1:8: "You shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth." This is what the bride is asking for here, when she says, Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, by spreading the faith throughout the world. Let us abide in the villages by building churches in cities and villages. (Nicholas of Lyra)
7:13 new as well as old: that is, the testimony of the Old and New Testaments. (Nicholas of Lyra) |
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