Song of Songs 8:4

4 Make a solemn pledge, daughters of Jerusalem, never to rouse, never to arouse love until it desires.

Song of Songs 8:4 Meaning and Commentary

Song of Solomon 8:4

I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up,
nor awake [my] love, until he please.
] The phrase, "by the roes [and] by the hinds of the field", used in ( Song of Solomon 2:7 ) ( 3:5 ) ; is here omitted; not as if the charge was less vehement and earnest here, for the form of expostulation seems rather to express more earnestness: for the words may be rendered, "why will ye", or "why should ye stir up, and why awake my love?" ^F9 being apprehensive they were about to do it; and which she dissuades from, as unreasonable and dangerous, and might be prejudicial to them as well as to her. The allusion is to virgins, that sung songs at marriages; one in the evening, lulling to sleep; and another in the morning, awaking and stirring up from it ^F11.

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 (hm) , "cur", Montanus, Schmidt.
F11 Vid. Theocrit. Idyll. 18.

Song of Songs 8:4 In-Context

2 I would lead you, I would bring you to my mother's house; she would teach me what to do. I would give you spiced wine to drink, some of my fresh pomegranate juice.

3 His left arm is beneath my head, and his right embraces me!

4 Make a solemn pledge, daughters of Jerusalem, never to rouse, never to arouse love until it desires.

5 [Daughters of Jerusalem]Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning against her lover? [Woman]Under the apple tree I aroused you— there, where your mother labored with you, there where, laboring, she bore you.

6 Set me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death, passionate love unrelenting as the grave. Its darts are darts of fire— divine flame!