Song of Songs 2:7-9
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
7 (A)I adjure you, Daughters of Jerusalem,[a]
by the gazelles and the does of the field,
Do not awaken, or stir up love
until it is ready.
Her Lover’s Visit Remembered
8 W The sound of my lover! here he comes[b]
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
9 My lover is like a gazelle[c]
or a young stag.
See! He is standing behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.
Footnotes
- 2:7 Cf. 3:5; 5:8; 8:4. By the gazelles and the does: perhaps a mitigated invocation of the divinity based on the assonance in Hebrew of the names of these animals with terms for God.
- 2:8–13 In this sudden change of scene, the woman describes a rendezvous and pictures her lover hastening toward her dwelling until his voice is heard calling her to him.
- 2:9 Gazelle: a frequent motif in ancient poems from Mesopotamia.
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