Song of Songs 4 Footnotes

4:1-7 If this word-picture of the bride’s beauty is taken as a visual image, the effect is grotesque—hair like goats’ hair, teeth like shorn sheep, lips like string or rope, brow (or cheek) like sliced fruit, neck like a tower strung with shields, breasts like immature gazelles. But Hebrew word-pictures are not static photographic images; they attempt to convey the impression of dynamism, or strength and movement, in what is being described. It was the rich flow of the bride’s hair that the poet compared to a flock of goats streaming down the pastures of prosperous Gilead. The uniformity and cleanliness of her teeth and the richness of her lips were what those images sought to convey. The symmetry and smoothness of pomegranate halves made a fitting analogy for the bride’s cheeks; the pomegranate was used to decorate the robes of the high priest (Ex 28:33-34) and the capitals of the temple’s pillars (1Kg 7:18-20). The bride wore an elaborate necklace that reminded the poet of the shields hung on the battlements of Jerusalem—a symbol of her pride and strength of character, and perhaps of her inviolable virginity. Her breasts were not obtrusive, but shyly hid themselves like fawns feeding under the watchful eye of their mother.

4:5 The explicit reference to “breasts” prompted early interpreters to treat the term as symbolic. The Targum (Aramaic translation and explanation of the OT) correlated two breasts with two messiahs, or with Moses and Aaron. Historically, Christian interpreters offered a variety of explanations. Some argued that the two breasts referred to the two Testaments, spiritually nourishing the church. Another perspective correlated the breasts with the dual commands to love God and to love one another. A third view believed the breasts symbolized Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim (Dt 27:11-13), located north of Jerusalem, from which the Israelite tribes proclaimed the curses, or sanctions, of the covenant. It is not likely that mention of the breasts is especially intended to suggest the bride’s sexual appeal to the male, even in a literal reading; they were listed here along with other features of the bride that equally impressed the poet (Sg 4:1-7). It is only in modern times that women’s breasts have a “suggestive” connotation in Western culture. In ancient and medieval times they were symbols of their function: providing nourishment or nurture. Medieval illustrations exist, for example, of the Virgin Mary supplying milk from her breasts to the baby Jesus.

4:12 Clearly, “garden” (v. 15; 5:1; 6:2) is a euphemism, a polite expression used to refer to delicate subjects. The fertility and lushness of the garden figuratively illustrates the woman’s most intimate physical characteristics. Significantly, the garden is “locked,” emphasizing chastity and therefore, inaccessibility to anyone except her husband.