Old/New Testament
1 Shir HaShirim, which is Sh’lomo’s
2 Let him kiss me with the neshikot (kisses) of his mouth; for better is dodecha (thy love) than yayin (wine).
3 Tovim is the fragrance of thy shmanim (ointments); thy shem (name) is like shemen (ointment) poured forth; therefore do the alamot love thee [alamot, young unmarried virgins; pl of almah virgin; see Shir HaShirim 6:8; Yeshayah 7:14; Bereshis 24:43; Shemot 2:8; Mishlei 30:19, where the word has this explicit or implicit meaning throughout the Tanakh; see page vii].
4 Draw me; so will we run after thee; the Melech hath brought me into his chadarim (chambers); we will be glad and rejoice in thee; we will extol dodecha (thy love) more than yayin; uprightly have they loved thee.
5 Shechorah (black, dark, sun-blackened) am I, yet lovely, O ye banot Yerushalayim, like the oholim (tents) of Kedar, like the curtains of Sh’lomo.
6 Let your eyes burn not into me because I am black, because the shemesh hath burned its eyes into me; bnei immi (my step-brothers) were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the kramim (vineyards); but mine own kerem (vineyard) have I not kept.
7 O tell me, thou whom my nefesh loveth, where feedest thou? Where makest thou thy flock to lie down at noon? For why should I be as one who veils herself among the edrei chaverecha (the flocks of thy chaverim, fellow companions)?
8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among nashim, go thy way forth by the footprints of the tzon, and feed thy young goats beside the mishkenot haro’im (the tents of the shepherds).
9 O my love, to a susah (mare) among the chariots of Pharaoh do I compare thee.
10 Thy cheeks are lovely with ornaments, thy tzavar (neck) with necklaces.
11 Ornaments of zahav will we make for thee, studded with kesef.
12 While the Melech is at his table, my spikenard perfume has yielded its fragrance.
13 Dodi (my beloved) is to me a sachet of myrrh that lieth in my bosom.
14 Dodi (my beloved) is to me as a cluster of henna blooms in the kramim (vineyards) of Ein-Gedi.
15 See, thou art yafeh (fair), my love; see, thou art fair; thine eynayim are yonim (doves).
16 See, thou art yafeh (handsome), dodi (my beloved), yea, na’im (pleasing); also our couch is verdant.
17 The beams of our bais are cedar, and our rafters are cypress.
2 I am the rose of Sharon, and the shoshan (lily) of the valleys.
2 As the shoshan (lily) among thorns, so is my love among the banot.
3 As the tapuach (apple tree) among the trees of the wood, so is dodi (my beloved) among the banim. Betzilloh (in his shade, shadow) chimmadti (I desire [see Shir HaShirim 5:16]), and his p’ri (fruit) is sweet to my taste.
4 He brought me to the Bais HaYayin, and his degel (standard, banner, flag) over me is ahavah.
5 Sustain me with cakes of raisins, comfort me with apples: ki cholat ahavah ani (for I am faint with ahavah, lovesick).
6 His left hand is under my rosh, and his right hand doth embrace me.
7 I charge you, O ye banot Yerushalayim, by the gazelles, and by the deer of the sadeh, that ye arouse nor awake HaAhavah till it pleases [i.e., until its own time—see 3:5; 8:4].
8 Kol dodi (the voice of my beloved)! Hinei, he cometh leaping upon the harim, bounding over the hills.
9 Dodi (my beloved) is like a gazelle or a young deer; hinei, he standeth behind our Kotel (Wall); he looketh forth at the chalonot (windows), peering through the lattices [Rev 3:20].
10 Dodi (my beloved) spoke, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
11 For, hinei, the winter is past, the geshem (rain) is over and gone;
12 The flowers appear on ha’aretz; the time of zemer (song, singing of birds) has come; and the voice of the turtledove is heard in Artzeinu (our Land);
13 The te’enah (fig tree) putteth forth her early figs, and the vines with the tender grape give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
14 O my yonah (dove), that art in the clefts of the rock, in the seter (secret place) of the cliff, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is lovely.
15 Catch the shu’alim (foxes), the shu’alim ketanim (little foxes), that spoil the kramim (vines); for krameinu (our [blooming] vines) have tender grapes.
16 Dodi (my beloved) is mine, and I am his; he feedeth among the lilies.
17 Until HaYom (the day) break, and the shadows flee away, turn, dodi (my beloved), and be thou like a gazelle or a young deer upon the hills of Beter.
3 In the nights on my bed I sought him whom my nefesh loveth; I sought him, but I found him not.
2 So I will rise then, and go about the city in the streets, and in the rechovot (open squares, places); I will seek him whom my nefesh loveth; I sought him, but found him not.
3 The shomrim (watchmen) that go about the city found me; to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my nefesh loveth?
4 Scarcely had I passed from them, when I found him whom my nefesh loveth; I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into the bais immi (the house of my mother), and into the cheder of her that conceived me.
5 I charge you, O ye banot Yerushalayim, by the gazelles, and by the deer of the sadeh, that ye arouse nor awake HaAhavah till it pleases [i.e., until its own time, see 2:7; 8:4].
6 Who is this that cometh out of the midbar like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense from all the fragrant powders of the rokhel (merchant)?
7 Hinei, his conveyance [see palanquin, 3:9], which is Sh’lomo’s; threescore gibborim (valiant men) are around it, of the Gibborei Yisroel.
8 They all hold swords, being expert in michamah (war); every man hath his cherev (sword) at his side against the pachad (terror, dread) of the nights.
9 HaMelech Sh’lomo made himself an appiryon (palanquin, mobile throne carried on a litter on the shoulders of men) of the wood of the Levanon.
10 He made the pillars thereof of kesef, the support thereof of zahav, the cushion of it of purple, the interior thereof being inlaid with Ahavah, by the banot Yerushalayim.
11 Come out, O ye banot Tziyon, and behold Sh’lomo HaMelech with the atarah (crown) wherewith his em crowned him in the Yom Chasunoh (day of his wedding), and in the Yom Simchat Libo (day of the gladness of his heart [see Rv 19:6-10; Ep 5:22-33; Yn 3:29; 2C 11:1-2; Yeshayah 54:5-6; Yirmeyah 2:2 Yechezkel 16:8-14,20-21,32,38; Hoshea 2:16,18-20 and here see the Shulamite as a type of the Kehillah of Moshiach and Sh’lomo Ben Dovid a type of Moshiach Ben Dovid the Ro’eh HaTov, the Good Shepherd])
2 Then, after arbah esrey shanim (fourteen years), again (Acts 11:30) I went up to Yerushalayim with Bar-Nabba, having taken with me also Titos.
2 Yet I went up according to a chazon (revelation), and I laid before them the Besuras HaGeulah which I proclaim among the Goyim, but I did this privately to the men of repute (2:9), lest I should run, or should prove to have run, L’TOHU (in vain) [YESHAYAH 49:4; 65:23].
3 But Titos, the one with me, a Yevani (Greek), was not compelled to undergo bris milah.
4 But because of the achei sheker (false brothers) b’Moshiach, the ones secretly brought in, the ones who crept in to spy out our DEROR ("freedom" VAYIKRA 25:10) which we have in Moshiach Yehoshua al menat (in order that) they might enslave us.
5 To these enslavers not for one hour did we yield in subjection, that HaEmes of the Besuras HaGeulah might continue and remain with you (Galatian Goyim).
6 But from the men of repute whatever they once were matters nothing to me, ki ein masso panim im Hashem (for there is no respect of persons with G-d, no partiality) for to me these men of repute added nothing.
7 But, on the contrary, having seen that I have been entrusted with the Besuras HaGeulah for those without the bris milah, just as Kefa was for those with the bris milah,
8 For the One having worked in Kefa for a Shlichus to those with the bris milah also worked in me for a Shlichus to the Goyim.
9 And realizing the Chen v’Chesed Hashem having been given to me, Ya’akov and Kefa and Yochanan, the men of repute, the ones seeming to be Ammudei HaKehillah (Pillars of the Kehillah), extended to me and to Bar-Nabba the yad yeminam (right hands) as a sign of Achavah B’Moshiach (Brotherhood in Moshiach), that we should be for those of the Goyim, but they for those of the bris milah,
10 Only that we should remember the Aniyim (the Poor), the very thing which I was also eager to do.
11 But when Kefa came to Antioch, I stood against him to his face, because there was found in him a dvar ashmah (a thing of guilt, condemnation).
12 For, before certain ones [Jerusalem visitors] came from Ya’akov, Kefa was as a matter of course sitting at tish at betzi’at halechem (breaking of bread) at the Seudos Moshiach with the Goyim; but, when they came, Kefa drew back and was separating himself, fearing the ones [the Jerusalem party] of the bris milah (Ac 15:5).
13 And the rest of the Yehudim who were ma’aminim b’Moshiach joined with Kefa in this dissembling, so that even Bar-Nabba was carried away with their tzevi’ut (hypocrisy).
14 But when I saw that their halichah, their hitnahagut (conduct) was not the Derech HaYashar (Straight Way) with respect to HaEmes of HaBesuras HaGeulah, I said to Kefa before all, "If you, being a Yehudi, have a hitnahagut that is according to the Derech Goyim and not the Derech Yehudim, how do you compel the Goyim to live as the Yehudim?
15 We ourselves are Yehudim by birth and not Goyishe chote’im (sinners).
16 Yet we have da’as that a man cannot be YITZDAK IM HASHEM ("be justified with G-d" IYOV 25:4) by chukim of the Torah (laws of Torah), but through emunah in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua." And we have come to have bitachon in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua, that we can be YITZDAK IM HASHEM ("be justified with G-d" IYOV 25:4) by emunah in Moshiach and not by chukim of the Torah, because by chukim of the Torah KOL CHAI LO YITZDAK ("all living shall not be justified" TEHILLIM 143:2).
17 Now, if, by seeking to be YITZDAK IM HASHEM in Moshiach, we ourselves were found also to be chote’im (sinners) [2:15; Ro 3:9,23], then in that case is Moshiach a kohen for iniquity, a minister serving sin? Chas v’Shalom (G-d forbid!)!
18 For if what I destroyed, these things I again rebuild (1:23; 5:2), I display myself to be a poshei’a (transgressor).
19 For I, through the Torah (3:13), died in relation to the chok (Ro 7:4-6), so that I might live to Hashem. With Moshiach I have been talui al haetz (hanging on the tree, DEVARIM 21:23).
20 But it is no longer Anochi (I) who lives, but Moshiach who lives in me, and the Chayyim I now live in the basar, I live by emunah, emunah in the Ben HaElohim [Moshiach], the one having ahavah (agape) for me and having given himself over, on my behalf.
21 I do not set aside the Chen v’Chesed Hashem; for if the MAH ("how") an ENOSH ("man") is to be YITZDAK IM HASHEM (IYOV 25:4) is found through chumra (legalism), then Moshiach died for nothing and L’TOHU (in vain) [Isa 49:4; 65:23].
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