Song of Solomon 2:1-17

1. She compares herself to a simple wild flower, the crocus (RM) of Sharon. The plain, which extended from Joppa to Cæsarea, was proverbial for its flowers (Isaiah 35:2), and travellers continue to revert to this feature: ’We constantly had reason to admire the faint harmonious colouring of the wild flowers on the untilled plain. Cæsarea was surrounded by fields of the yellow marigold. Other flowers were also conspicuous—the red pheasant’s eye, in some cases as big as a poppy; blue pimpernels, moon-daisies, the lovely phlox, gladioles, and high hollyhocks.’

2. He will hot suffer her to depreciate her own value: compared with other women she is a lily among thorns (Proverbs 31:29). The Huleh lily, in the north of the Holy Land, grows in the midst of thorns, which lacerate the hands of the flower-gatherers. The soil near Bethlehem, in the S., is enamelled with lilies and covered almost everywhere with dwarf thorns.

3-7. In this strife of mutual compliments she now likens him to the beautiful, flowering, fruit-bearing apple tree, which gives a welcome shade, gratifies the sense of taste, and is to Orientals a symbol of love.

4. He has brought her to a ’house of wine’ (RM), a place of feasting and enjoyment, where the banner floating over them was not merely inscribed with the word Love, but was Love, itself. The entire description is figurative, and if the language were not sufficient to indicate this we should be driven to the conclusion by the fact that it was not considered decorous for women to be present at banquets (Esther 1:12; Daniel 5:10, Daniel 5:23). In Egypt the house where a marriage-festival is in progress is marked by rows of flags and streamers stretched across the street.

5. She begs her friends to sustain her with cakes of pressed raisins (RV), such as were given to those who were fainting for hunger (1 Samuel 25:18; 1 Samuel 30:12; 2 Samuel 6:19; Hosea 3:1).

7. And they are to leave her and her beloved for the present undisturbed by the festal dances and songs. The request is repeated Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 8:4, and on each occasion is evidently meant to mark one of the main divisions of the poem. The adjuration, by the gazelles (RM), and by the hinds of the field, is suggested by the beauty and the timidity of those graceful creatures.