Song Of Solomon 1:9 - Exposition

( Entrance of the bridegroom. ) I have compared thee, O my love, to a steed in Pharaoh's chariots. There can be no reasonable doubt that these words are put into the mouth of the king. The "steed" is in the feminine ( סוּסָה ); some would point the word with the plural vowels, that is, "to my horses," or a "body of horses." There is no necessity for that. The reference to a particular very lovely mare is more apt and pointed. In 1 Kings 10:26 we read in the LXX . Version of τεσσάρες χιλίαδες θηλειαὶ ἵπποι , which Solomon had for his chariots—fourteen hundred war chariots and twelve thousand horsemen. The Pharaoh chariots were those which the king had imported from Egypt ( 1 Kings 10:28 , 1 Kings 10:29 ; 2 Chronicles 9:28 ). It may be that the reference is to the splendid decoration of the trappings. Delitzsch very rightly sees in such a figure a confirmation of the view that Solomon himself was the author. The horses from Egypt were famed at that time as those of Arabia became afterwards. The names both of horses and chariots in the Egyptian language were borrowed from the Semitic, as they were probably first imported into Egypt by the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. Other examples of the same comparison are found in poetry, as in Horace, Anacreon, and Theocritus. In the last ('Idyl.,' 18.30, 31) occur the following lines, rendered into English verse:—

"As towers the cypress 'mid the garden's bloom,

As in the chariot proud Thessalian steed,

Thus graceful, rose-complexioned Helen moves."

The idea is that of stately beauty and graceful movements. The old commentators see the Divine love of espousals ( Jeremiah 2:2 ), as in the wilderness of the Exodus, and afterwards in the wilderness of the world. The Bible is full of the expression of Divine tenderness and regard for man.