Song of Solomon 4:1-14

1 You are beautiful, my darling, beautiful beyond words. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair falls in waves, like a flock of goats winding down the slopes of Gilead.

2 Your teeth are as white as sheep, recently shorn and freshly washed. Your smile is flawless, each tooth matched with its twin.

3 Your lips are like scarlet ribbon; your mouth is inviting. Your cheeks are like rosy pomegranates behind your veil.

4 Your neck is as beautiful as the tower of David, jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes.

5 Your breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle grazing among the lilies.

6 Before the dawn breezes blow and the night shadows flee, I will hurry to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense.

7 You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way.

8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, come with me from Lebanon. Come down from Mount Amana, from the peaks of Senir and Hermon, where the lions have their dens and leopards live among the hills.

9 You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes, with a single jewel of your necklace.

10 Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride. Your love is better than wine, your perfume more fragrant than spices.

11 Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. Your clothes are scented like the cedars of Lebanon.

12 You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride, a secluded spring, a hidden fountain.

13 Your thighs shelter a paradise of pomegranates with rare spices— henna with nard,

14 nard and saffron, fragrant calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, and every other lovely spice.

Song of Solomon 4:1-14 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO SONG OF SOLOMON 4

In this chapter is contained a large commendation of the church's beauty by Christ; first, more particularly, by an enumeration of several parts, as her eyes, hair, teeth, lips, temples, neck, and breasts, So 4:1-5; and more generally, So 4:7; And having observed where he himself was determined to go, he invites her to go with him; which he enforces, partly from the danger she was exposed unto where she was So 4:6,8; and partly from the comeliness of her person and graces in his esteem; with which he was ravished, and therefore was extremely desirous of her company, So 4:9-11; And then enters into some new descriptions of her; as a garden and orchard, as a spring and fountain, So 4:12-14; all which she makes to be owing to him, So 4:15; And the chapter is closed with an order from Christ to the winds to blow on his garden, and cause the spices of it to flow out; and with an invitation of the church to Christ, to come into his garden, and relax there, So 4:16.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew Not one is missing; each has a twin.
• [b]. Or Look down.
• [c]. Hebrew my sister; also in 4:10, 12 .