Deeper Commentary
Song of Solomon 7:1
How beautiful are your feet in sandals, prince’s daughter! Your
rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skilful
workman-
This continues the lover's praise of the Egyptian girl as she dances
in the preceding verse in Song 6:13. But the praise of her is from the
feet to the head, rather than from head to foot as in the previous praise
of her in Song 4,5 and 6. This might be appropriate to her being praised
whilst dancing, as her footwork would be observed. "The turns of your
thighs" (Heb.) would also be an observation relevant to dancing,
and Song 6 has concluded with the Shulamite at the dance of Mahanaim.
"Your feet in sandals" is literally "your steps in sandals", as if her
step dancing is being admired. We have
confirmed that she was no peasant girl, as some commentators imagine due
to misreading the earlier metaphors about Solomon as a shepherd of sheep,
but rather a "prince's daughter", likely Pharaoh's daughter. Again
we note how physical is his appreciation of her; he sees nothing spiritual
in her only the delicateness of her adorned feet, her exquisitely turning
thighs, smooth belly (7:3), streamlined neck, commanding nose and deep-sea
eyes (7:5). All of which fade and degrade with the passing years. As
mentioned previously, it would appear the girl is naked before Solomon and
he is praising her.
He describes her thighs as if they had been rounded by a skilled artisan. But the maker of her body, and of all bodies, was God. He is the skillful and beautiful creator, but Solomon doesn't make this obvious point. God is nowhere in his thinking.
Song of Solomon 7:2 Your body is like a round goblet, no mixed wine is
wanting. Your waist is like a heap of wheat, set about with lilies-
The comparison with "mixed wine" shows again that Solomon was well
acquainted with wine from an early age, and viewed it positively. Perhaps
this is why his mother specifically warns him against alcohol in Prov. 31.
His later turning to alcohol mentioned in Ecc. 2 would therefore be an
example of how the weaknesses of youth are developed in old age, unless
they are cut out of life and thought. Solomon's path to apostacy can be
traced as beginning in his youth, rather than as the result of some mid
life crisis.
We note how few verbs there are in his description of her in :2-8. It's all about external appearances, things, nouns, not who the person was or what they did. The Shulamite describes him likewise in Song 5:10-17.
Song of Solomon 7:3 Your two breasts are like two fawns, that are twins of a roe-
Breasts as twins means Solomon considered them, after much
observation, to be perfectly identical- apparently something he found
attractive. "The lilies" is likewise a sexual allusion; see on Song 2:16.
He was ravished with this Egyptian girl, especially
with her breasts (Song 4:5; 7:3). Alluding to this he
could confidently exhort in Prov. 5:18-20 AV: "Rejoice with the
wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe
(Song of Solomon language); let her breasts satisfy thee... be thou ravished always with her love... And why wilt thou, my
son, be ravished with a strange (i.e. Gentile) woman?". How, indeed?
But 999 women later, it was a different story for Solomon. Solomon writes in Prov. 5:18-20 as if it is of course unthinkable that he should have been ravished by a Gentile woman; but he had been.
Song of Solomon 7:4 Your neck is like an ivory tower-
The idea is that her neck was very long, and this kind of praise of
women is found in Egyptian love poetry. Again we see Solomon influenced by
the culture of Egypt. And yet women emphasizing their long necks are
condemned in Is. 3:16. Indeed the description there of the condemned
daughters of Zion sounds very much like those we are reading in the Song
of Solomon about the Egyptian girl.
Your eyes are like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bathrabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus-
Again we note that Solomon likens her to the geography of Israel. She
was an Egyptian, but he wishes to see her as an Israelite, he projects
this image onto her, and falls in love with the image rather than the
reality. Even though as noted above he was very much immersed himself in
the language and culture of Egypt. Heshbon at that time was under
Israelite control, but soon afterwards it was lost by them (Is. 16:8,9).
Again this is evidence that the Song was written indeed in the times of
Solomon and not, as the critics claim, much later. See on Song 6:4.
"By the gate of Bathrabbim" could refer to the gate looking toward Rabbath-Ammon on the north side of the city. "The tower of Lebanon" could refer to a tower on the house of the forest of Lebanon.
Song of Solomon 7:5 Your head on you is like Carmel. The hair of your head is like
purple. The king is held captive in its tresses-
“And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart
is snares and nets,
and her hands
as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the
sinner shall be taken by her” (Ecc. 7:26) is a clear reference back to
Solomon’s own entanglement with this girl. In his younger days, he had found “the hair of
thine head like the purple of a king [i.e. he imagined her to be suited to
him, the King of Israel, when she wasn’t]; the king is held captive in the
tresses thereof” (Song 7:5 RV).
Song of Solomon 7:6 How beautiful and how pleasant you are, love, for delights!-
Heb. "among all the delights" could reinforce Solomon's claim that he
considered her the most beautiful of all his women; although he carefully
says that his other wives also provided "delights". And the Hebrew
is literally "How pleasant is the love of this one". He clearly implies
that he has already had sex with her, as admitted openly in :8. After the
conflict with the daughters of Jerusalem in Song 5,6, the relationship is
out in the open, and Solomon is confirming her own statements that they
had already had sex (Song 6:2).
Song of Solomon 7:7 This, your stature, is like a palm tree, your breasts
like its fruit-
He admires her for being tall. Dark skinned Egyptians were held to be
generally taller than Israelites (Is. 45:14), and Solomon finds this
attractive.
Song of Solomon 7:8 I said, I will climb up into the palm tree. I will
take hold of its fruit. Let your breasts be like clusters of the vine, the
smell of your breath like apples-
The allusion is to her nipples as vine clusters. All this sex
stuff we would expect after the wedding. But there is nothing at all in
the Song to suggest romance-wedding-sex-children-family life. Only
premarital sex. Solomon here clearly states that he has had sexual activity with this
Egyptian woman. He likens himself to a small man with her much taller than
him. Clearly he has been dominated by the Gentile, just as he had warned
Israelites not to be. He considers himself free of any personal moral
restraint.
Song of Solomon 7:9 your mouth like the best wine, that goes down smoothly for my
beloved, gliding through the lips of those who are asleep-
He says that deep kissing with her gives the same after effect as
drinking enough wine that you talk in your sleep afterwards. It’s all very
human and carnal. This was all a conscious disregard of Bathsheba’s
warning to Solomon not to love wine nor to be destroyed by foreign women
(Prov. 31:4). And Solomon published her words in his anthology of wisdom
known as the book of Proverbs. He likewise condemns love of alcohol
throughout Proverbs, just as he does relationships with Gentile women. But
he does the very things he condemns. His wisdom, as he admits in
Ecclesiastes, was “far from” him personally. He failed to personalize the
truths he knew. And in this he is a warning to all who know God’s Truth.
For like him, we can be tempted to assume that mere possession of it
justifies us.
He is directly going against the wisdom he had taught in Prov. 7:21:
"With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him".
The Hebrew literally refers to the smoothness of
her lips; and Solomon admired the smoothness of the lips of his illicit
Gentile girlfriend (s.w. Song 4:3,11; 7:9). Again we see Solomon doing the
exact opposite of the wisdom and theoretical truth he was blessed with.
Solomon in Prov. 7:5 argues as if mere intellectual assent to the truths
he was teaching would keep a man safe from sexual temptation and the
flattery of bad women. But Solomon himself possessed all this truth and
failed miserably in this area.
We may also enquire as to how did Solomon know about wine unless even at a relatively young age, he knew about the sensation of wine from personal experience? He had again denied his own wisdom: “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red… when it goeth down smoothly” (Prov. 23:31 RV).
Grammatically, "that goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding through the lips of those who are asleep" would imply this is spoken by the woman. In this case, she as it were playfully completes Solomon's sentence. This would explain the change of gender of the speaker in the middle of the verse.
Beloved
Song of Solomon 7:10 I am my beloved’s. His desire is toward me-
The woman comes over as incredibly naive to believe that indeed,
Solomon's desire is toward her and she is his; despite his admission to
having a harem of women and virgins in waiting to become his wives in Song
6:8. As noted on Song 1, she comes over as self confident, manipulative
and forceful of her agenda. But even she is presented as being duped by
smooth words. It's a case of "deceiving and being deceived". The allusion
is to "your desire shall be for your husband" (Gen. 3:16). The Genesis
ideal was that one man and one woman have mutually exclusive desire for
each other. But she is going ahead with a relationship with a man whom she
knows has a harem, and he likewise accepts that. And it could be argued
that the man having desire for the woman is in fact an inversion
of Gen. 3:16, where the woman is to have desire for the man.
Both of them are trying to find a way out of the curse, to have a
little of both- unrestrained sexual freedom whilst free from the curse for
sin. And it doesn't work. She offers him to eat her fruit in her closed
garden, but eating it leads to his spiritual death.
The Bride Gives Her Love
Song of Solomon 7:11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field. Let
us lodge in the villages-
"Lodge" is "pass the night", "among the henna bushes" (Heb.-
the same word is translated "henna" in Song 4:13). So she
is setting up another night together, clearly for sex in bushes thought to
be aphrodisiacs. Still they appear to be unable to openly live and sleep
together in the palace; for they are still unmarried, and the opposition
with the daughters of Jerusalem is still unresolved.
Song of Solomon 7:12 Let’s go early up to the vineyards. Let’s see whether
the vine has budded, its blossom is open, and the pomegranates are in
flower. There I will give you my love-
Vines and pomegranates are sexual symbols in Song 1:6; 4:13; 7:9;
8;2. It could be that she urges him to sleep with her because she
considers herself fertile. For he has used the figures in this way in Song
6:11, in trying to persuade her that he is very serious about their
relationship and is sexually attracted to her in the hope of her getting
pregnant. Again we note how forward she is, and "there I will give you my
love" sounds as if she is sexually dominant and has control over Solomon,
for all his power and glory.
LXX "there will I give thee my breasts". The language is alluding to the bad Gentile woman of Prov. 7: "Come, let us have our lovemaking until morning; let us revel...". As noted so often, Solomon consciously makes these connections within his writings. He knows that the Gentile woman has indeed led him astray; he perceives so accurately the mechanisms. But does nothing about it in terms of repentance.
Song of Solomon 7:13 The mandrakes give forth fragrance. At our doors are all kinds of
precious fruits, new and old, which I have stored up for you, my beloved-
A woman offering a man delightful fruit in a garden recalls again
the scene of Adam and Eve in Eden. Solomon on one hand realizes that he
has been led to eat the forbidden fruit, with terrible consequences. But
never is there a hint at repentance. The
emphasis upon aphrodisiacs throughout the Song underlines the
impression that these two are only in love on a physical level. If
external adornment and drugs are required by them for the enjoyment of
their relationship right at the start of it, then there is clearly no bond
of personality or spiritual aspect to it at all. And so it proves finally
unsatisfactory, and the love song doesn't end with marriage and children
as we expect, but with cynical and bitter breakup.
Whose "doors"? The language is that of Mt. 13:52 about a householder who brings forth things new and old. She seems to have in mind his returning with her to Egypt under the influence of her aphrodisiacs and sexuality. That is the continued theme in the next verse (Song 8:1).
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