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Song of Songs 3:1-3
New Catholic Bible
Song of Songs 3:1-3
New Catholic Bible
Third Poem
Chapter 3
I Found the One My Heart Loves[a]
Bride:
1 Night[b] after night upon my bed
I sought the one my heart loves.
I sought him, but I could not find him.
2 I said, “I will rise and go through the city,
along the streets and in the squares.
I will seek the one my heart loves.”
I sought him, but I could not find him.
3 The watchmen[c] came upon me
as they made their rounds of the city,
and I asked them,
“Have you seen the one my heart loves?”
Footnotes
- Song of Songs 3:1 Night has come, but in vain has the bride awaited the bridegroom. Driven by the ardor of her love, she hastens through the village to find him. Her love guides her to him so that she will take him home and he will embrace her. Already she seems to hear her husband wish that his weary beloved should be left to take her rest.
Human love remains a symbol of divine love. God hides from those who fail to seek him with all their heart. He lets himself be found by those who love him and render glory to him in the temple of Jerusalem where he is, as it were, the spouse of the chosen nation. It is from there that he watches over his people.
Is the life of the Church anything else but the passionate quest for persons who one day heard the Lord’s call? - Song of Songs 3:1 Night: a symbol of anxious waiting (see Ps 130:6; Isa 5:30; 8:22; 9:1; 21:11; 26:9; 59:9). I sought the one my heart loves . . . but I could not find him: this is symptomatic of the people’s search for God. He can be found only by a true conversion (see Hos 3:5; 5:6, 15; Jer 29:13).
- Song of Songs 3:3 Watchmen: they stood on the walls (see 2 Sam 13:34; Ps 127:1; Isa 52:8) or at the gates of the city (see Neh 3:29) and patrolled the streets as well (Song 5:7).
