Song of Solomon 5:2-9

The Bride Searches for Her Beloved

2 I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is ¹knocking. "Open to me, my ²sister, my ³love, my ⁴dove, my ⁵perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my ⁶locks with the drops of the night."

3 ⁷I had put off my garment; how could I put it on? I had ⁸bathed my feet; how could I soil them?

4 My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me.

5 I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with ⁹liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt.

6 I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. My soul failed me when he ¹⁰spoke. ¹¹I sought him, but found him not; ¹²I called him, but he gave no answer.

7 ¹³The watchmen found me as they went about in the city; they beat me, they bruised me, they took away my veil, those watchmen of the walls.

8 I ¹⁴adjure you, O ¹⁵daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him ¹⁶I am sick with love.

9 What is your beloved more than another beloved, O ¹⁷most beautiful among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus ¹⁸adjure us?

Song of Solomon 5:2-9 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO SONG OF SOLOMON 5

This chapter begins with Christ's answer to the church's request; in which he informs her, that he was come into his garden, as she desired, and gives an account of what he had done there; and kindly invites his dear friends to feast with him there, So 5:1; Then she relates her case and circumstances, which followed upon this, her sleepy frame, and ungrateful carriage to her beloved; which he resenting, withdrew from her, and this gave her sensible pain, So 5:2-6; what treatment she met with from the watchmen; her charge to the daughters of Jerusalem; and the questions they asked about her beloved, So 5:7-9; which put her upon giving a large description of him, by each of his parts, head, hair So 5:10-15; And the chapter is concluded with a general commendation of him and his loveliness, and a claim of interest in So 5:16.

Cross References

• 1. [Revelation 3:20]
• 2. Song of Songs 4:9, 10, 12
• 3. See Song of Songs 1:15
• 4. See Song of Songs 2:14
• 5. Song of Songs 6:9; [Song of Songs 4:7]
• 6. ver. 11
• 7. [Luke 11:7]
• 8. See Genesis 18:4
• 9. ver. 13
• 10. [ver. 2]
• 11. Song of Songs 3:1
• 12. [Proverbs 1:28]
• 13. Song of Songs 3:3
• 14. See Song of Songs 2:7
• 15. See Song of Songs 1:5
• 16. Song of Songs 2:5
• 17. Song of Songs 1:8; Song of Songs 6:1
• 18. [See ver. 8 above]