Song of Songs 6

Chapter 6 of the Song of Songs falls in the latter part of this eight-chapter book. In Song of Songs 5, the woman searches for her beloved, who has gone away, and describes his appearance in song. Chapter 6 opens as the women who heard that song ask where he has gone.

Outline

• Verses 1–3: The women ask, "Whither is thy beloved gone?" The woman answers that he is feeding his flock in his garden and gathering lilies, and she declares that the two of them belong to each other.
• Verses 4–9: The man praises the woman, comparing her to Tirzah, to Jerusalem, and to an army with banners. His descriptions of her hair, teeth, and cheeks are nearly identical to those in Song of Songs 4. He sings that although there are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number, his dove, his undefiled, is but one.
• Verse 10: A voice asks who this woman is who shines like the dawn, the moon, and the sun.
• Verses 11–12: The speaker says that after going down to the garden of nuts, before he was aware, he found himself among the chariots of a noble people.
• Verses 13–14: A voice calls the Shulamite to return, and a reply follows that compares her to the dance of Mahanaim.

Key Verses

• Song of Songs 6:3: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine" — This repeats the declaration of Song of Songs 2:16 in reverse order, affirming the bond between the two.
• Song of Songs 6:9: "My dove, my undefiled is but one" — Set against the multitude of other women, this verse expresses a love directed toward one person alone.

Characters and Places

• The Shulamite: She is first called "the Shulamite" in verse 13 of this chapter. Interpreters disagree about the meaning of the name and about her place of origin.
• The beloved: The woman's lover. Because he is portrayed as a king with queens and concubines, he has traditionally been identified with Solomon.
• The women: A group who offer to join in the search for the beloved; they are generally understood to be the daughters of Jerusalem mentioned in the previous chapter.
• Tirzah: The early capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.
• Jerusalem: The royal city of the Davidic dynasty.
• Gilead: A mountainous region east of the Jordan River.
• Mahanaim: A place east of the Jordan whose name means "two camps."

Interpretive Considerations

• Different traditions have read the Song of Songs in different ways.
• Jewish tradition has read it as a portrayal of the love between God and Israel.
• Since the patristic era, Christian tradition has read it as an allegory of the love between Christ and the church, or between Christ and the believer's soul.
• In Catholic tradition, verse 10 is sometimes applied to Mary.
• Many recent Protestant commentators read it first as poetry celebrating the love between a man and a woman and then relate it to Ephesians 5:31–32.
• The Hebrew text of verse 12 is notoriously difficult, and translations of the verse vary considerably.
• The Hebrew Masoretic Text places verse 13 and the verses following it at the beginning of chapter 7.
• The New Testament does not directly quote the Song of Songs.