Shir Hashirim 2:5

5 Sustain me with cakes of raisins, comfort me with apples: ki cholat ahavah ani (for I am faint with ahavah, lovesick).

Shir Hashirim 2:5 Meaning and Commentary

Song of Solomon 2:5

Stay me with flagons
Of wine, which is a supporter of the animal spirits ^F23. The church was now in a house of wine, where was plenty of it; even of the love of Christ, compared to wine, and preferred unto it, ( Song of Solomon 1:2 Song of Solomon 1:4 ) ; the church though she had had large discoveries of it, desired more; and such that have once tasted of this love are eagerly desirous of it, and cannot be satisfied until they have their fill of it in heaven: the flagons, being vessels in which wine is put, and from thence poured out, may signify the word and ordinances, in which the love of Christ is displayed and manifested; the church desires she might be stayed and supported hereby, while she was attending on Christ in them; comfort me with apples;
with exceeding great and precious promises; which, when fitly spoken and applied, are "like apples of gold in pictures of silver", ( Proverbs 25:11 ) ; and are very comforting: or rather, with fresh and greater manifestations of his love still; for the apple is an emblem of love, as before observed; for one to send or throw an apple to another indicated love ^F24. It may be rendered, "strew me with apples" ^F25; in great quantities, about me, before me, and under me, and all around me, that I may lie down among them, and be sweetly refreshed and strengthened: the words, both in this and the former clause, are in the plural number; and so may be an address to the other two divine Persons, along with Christ, to grant further manifestations of love unto her, giving the following reason for it: for I [am] sick of love;
not as loathing it, but as wanting, and eagerly desirous of more of it; being, as the Septuagint version is, "wounded" ^F26 with it; love's dart stuck in her, and she was inflamed therewith: and "languished" ^F1; as the Vulgate Latin version is; with earnest desires after it; nor could she be easy without it, as is the case of lovers.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F23 "Vino fulcire venas cadentes", Senecae Ep. 95.
F24 "Malo me Galatea petit", Virgil. Bucolic. Eclog. 3. v. 64. Vid. Theocrit. Idyll. 3. v. 10. & Idyll. 6. v. 6, 7. & Suidam in voce (mhlon) .
F25 (ynwdpr) "sternite ante me", so some in Vatablus; "substernite mihi", Tigurine version, Piscator.
F26 (tetrwmhnh) , Sept.
F1 "Langueo amore", V. L. so Michaelis; "aegrotus" is used in this sense, in Terent. Heautont. l. 1.

Shir Hashirim 2:5 In-Context

3 As the tapuach (apple tree) among the trees of the wood, so is dodi (my beloved) among the banim. Betzilloh (in his shade, shadow) chimmadti (I desire [see Shir HaShirim 5:16]), and his p’ri (fruit) is sweet to my taste.

4 He brought me to the Bais HaYayin, and his degel (standard, banner, flag) over me is ahavah.

5 Sustain me with cakes of raisins, comfort me with apples: ki cholat ahavah ani (for I am faint with ahavah, lovesick).

6 His left hand is under my rosh, and his right hand doth embrace me.

7 I charge you, O ye banot Yerushalayim, by the gazelles, and by the deer of the sadeh, that ye arouse nor awake HaAhavah till it pleases [i.e., until its own time—see 3:5; 8:4].