CHAPTER 6 May 9 
Daughters of Jerusalem
Where has your beloved gone, you fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?

Beloved
2My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. 3I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies.

Lover
4You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. 5Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome  me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead. 6Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, which have come up from the washing; of which each one has twins; none is bereaved among them. 7Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil. 8There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number. 9My dove, my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother’s only daughter. She is the favourite one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed; the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. 10Who is she who looks forth as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners? 11I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower. 12Without realizing it, my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots.

Daughters of Jerusalem
13Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you.

Lover
Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of Mahanaim?

Commentary

6:13 Solomon boasts that he has many Jewish queens and concubines, but there is only one woman, the Egyptian, that he truly loves (6:8,9); he even calls her his “sister”, associating himself thereby with Egypt. Perhaps this tension between the two groups- the Jerusalem women and the Egyptian girl and her family- is behind the enigmatic reference to “the company of two armies” or “the dance of the two camps” or lines. She suspects there may be two camps in Solomon's mind.