Song of Solomon 1-4

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

note: Among the multitudes who read the Bible there are comparatively few who have a clear understanding of the Song of Solomon. Some have thought it to be a collection of songs, but it is more generally understood to be a sort of drama, the positive interpretation of which is impossible because the identity of the speakers and the length of the speeches are not disclosed.

1 The song of songs [the most excellent of them all] which is Solomon’s.^(A)

² Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! [she cries. Then, realizing that Solomon has arrived and has heard her speech, she turns to him and adds] For your love is better than wine!

³ [And she continues] The odor of your ointments is fragrant; your name is like perfume poured out. Therefore do the maidens love you.

⁴ Draw me! We will run after you! The king brings me into his apartments! We will be glad and rejoice in you! We will recall [when we were favored with] your love, more fragrant than wine. The upright [are not offended at your choice, but sincerely] love you.

⁵ I am so black; but [you are] lovely and pleasant [the ladies assured her]. O you daughters of Jerusalem, [I am as dark] as the tents of [the Bedouin tribe] Kedar, like the [beautiful] curtains of Solomon!

⁶ [Please] do not look at me, [she said, for] I am swarthy. [I have worked out] in the sun and it has left its mark upon me. My stepbrothers were angry with me, and they made me keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard [my complexion] I have not kept.

⁷ [Addressing her shepherd, she said] Tell me, O ^[a]you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon. For why should I [as I think of you] be as a veiled one straying beside the flocks of your companions?^(B)

⁸ If you do not know [where your lover is], O you fairest among women, run along, follow the tracks of the flock, and [amuse yourself by] pasturing your kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

⁹ O my love [he said as he saw her], you remind me of my [favorite] mare in the chariot spans of Pharaoh.

¹⁰ Your cheeks are comely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

¹¹ We will make for you chains and ornaments of gold, studded with silver.

¹² While the king sits at his table [she said], my spikenard [my absent lover] sends forth [his] fragrance [over me].

¹³ My beloved [shepherd] is to me like a [scent] bag of myrrh that lies in my bosom.

¹⁴ My beloved [shepherd] is to me a cluster of henna flowers in the vineyards of En-gedi [famed for its fragrant shrubs].

¹⁵ Behold, you are beautiful, my love! Behold, you are beautiful! You have doves’ eyes.

¹⁶ [She cried] Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved [shepherd], yes, delightful! Our arbor and couch are green and leafy.

¹⁷ The beams of our house are cedars, and our rafters and panels are cypresses or pines.

2 [She said] I am only a little rose or autumn crocus of the plain of Sharon, or a [humble] lily of the valleys [that grows in deep and difficult places].

² But Solomon replied, Like the lily among thorns, so are you, my love, among the daughters.

³ Like an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved [shepherd] among the sons [cried the girl]! Under his shadow I delighted to sit, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

⁴ He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love [for love waved as a protecting and comforting banner over my head when I was near him].

⁵ Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love.

⁶ [I can feel] ^[b]his left hand under my head and his right hand embraces me!^(C)

⁷ [He said] I charge you, O you daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field [which are free to follow their own instincts] that you not try to stir up or awaken [my] love until it pleases.

⁸ [Vividly she pictured it] The voice of my beloved [shepherd]! Behold, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.^(D)

⁹ My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart. Behold, he stands behind the wall of our house, he looks in through the windows, he glances through the lattice.

¹⁰ My beloved speaks and says to me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

¹¹ For, behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.

¹² The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing [of birds] has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

¹³ The fig tree puts forth and ripens her green figs, and the vines are in blossom and give forth their fragrance. ^[c]Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

¹⁴ [So I went with him, and when we were climbing the rocky steps up the hillside, my beloved shepherd said to me] O my dove, [while you are here] in the seclusion of the clefts in the solid rock, in the sheltered and secret place of the cliff, let me see your face, ^[d]let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.

¹⁵ [My heart was touched and I fervently sang to him my desire] Take for us the foxes, the ^[e]little foxes that spoil the vineyards [of our love], for our vineyards are in blossom.

¹⁶ [She said distinctly] My beloved is mine and I am his! He pastures his flocks among the lilies.^(E)

¹⁷ [Then, longingly addressing her absent shepherd, she cried] Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, return hastily, O my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young hart as you cover the mountains [which separate us].

3 In the night I dreamed that I sought the one whom I love. [She said] I looked for him but could not find him.^(F)

² So I decided to go out into the city, into the streets and broad ways [which are so confusing to a country girl], and seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I could not find him.

³ The watchmen who go about the city found me, to whom I said, Have you seen him whom my soul loves?

⁴ I had gone but a little way past them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me.^(G)

⁵ I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field that you stir not up nor awaken love until it pleases.

⁶ Who or what is this [she asked] that comes gliding out of the wilderness like stately pillars of smoke perfumed with myrrh, frankincense, and all the fragrant powders of the merchant?

⁷ [Someone answered] Behold, it is the traveling litter (the bridal car) of Solomon. Sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel.

⁸ They all handle the sword and are expert in war; every man has his sword upon his thigh, that fear be not excited in the night.

⁹ King Solomon made himself a car or a palanquin from the [cedar] wood of Lebanon.

¹⁰ He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple, the inside of it lovingly and intricately wrought in needlework by the daughters of Jerusalem.

¹¹ Go forth, O you daughters of Zion, and gaze upon King Solomon wearing the crown with which his mother [Bathsheba] crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of his gladness of heart.

4 How fair you are, my love [he said], how very fair! Your eyes behind your veil [remind me] of those of a dove; your hair [makes me think of the black, wavy fleece] of a flock of [the Arabian] goats which one sees trailing down Mount Gilead [beyond the Jordan on the frontiers of the desert].

² Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes which have come up from the washing, of which all are in pairs, and none is missing among them.

³ Your lips are like a thread of scarlet, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.

⁴ Your neck is like the tower of David, built for an arsenal, whereon hang a thousand bucklers, all of them shields of warriors.

⁵ Your two breasts are like two fawns, like twins of a gazelle that feed among the lilies.

⁶ Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, [in my thoughts] I will get to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense [to him whom my soul adores].

⁷ [He exclaimed] O my love, how beautiful you are! There is no flaw in you!^(H)

⁸ Come ^[f]away with me from Lebanon, my [promised] bride, come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the top of Amana, from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards.^(I)

⁹ You have ravished my heart and given me courage, my sister, my [promised] bride; you have ravished my heart and given me courage with one look from your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.

¹⁰ How beautiful is your love, my sister, my [promised] bride! How much better is your love than wine! And the fragrance of your ointments than all spices!^(J)

¹¹ Your lips, O my [promised] bride, drop honey as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue. And the odor of your garments is like the odor of Lebanon.

¹² A garden enclosed and barred is my sister, my [promised] bride—a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

¹³ Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates or a paradise with precious fruits, henna with spikenard plants,^(K)

¹⁴ Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all the chief spices.

¹⁵ You are a fountain [springing up] in a garden, a well of living waters, and flowing streams from Lebanon.^(L)

¹⁶ [You have called me a garden, she said] Oh, I pray that the [cold] ^[g]north wind and the [soft] south wind may blow upon my garden, that its spices may flow out [in abundance for you in whom my soul delights]. Let my beloved come into his garden and eat its choicest fruits.