Song Of Songs Chapter 4 verse 8 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. - Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards. This seems to be simply the bridegroom rejoicing over the bride, the meaning being, "Give thyself up to me" - thou art mine; look away from the past, and delight thyself in the future. Delitzsch, however, thinks that the bridegroom seeks the bride to go with him up the steep heights of Lebanon, and to descend with him from thence; for while ascending the mountain one has no view before him, but when descending he has the whole panorama of the surrounding region lying at his feet. It is stretching poetical language too far to take it so literally and topically; there is no necessity to think of either the lover or his beloved as actually on the mountains, the idea is simply that of the mountainous region - Turn thy back upon it, look away from it. This is clearly seen from the fact that the names connected with Lebanon - Amana, Senir, Hermon - could have no reference to the bride's being in them. as they represent Anti-Libanus, separated from Lebanon by the Coelo-Syrian valley, stretching from the Banias northwards to the plain of Hamath (see 2 Kings 5:12, where Amana is Abana, overlooking Damascus, now the Basadia). Shenir, or Senir, and Hermon are neighbouring peaks or mountains, or possibly different names for the same (see Deuteronomy 3:9). In 1 Chronicles 5:23 they are mentioned as districts. Hermon is the chief mountain of the range of Anti-Libanus on the northeast border of Palestine (Psalm 89:12). The wild beasts abounded in that district, especially lions and panthers. They were found in the clefts and defiles of the rocks. Lions, however, have now altogether disappeared. In the name Amana some think there is an allusion to truth (amen) (see Hosea 2:22); but that would be too obscure. The general intention of the passage is simple and plain - Leave the rough places, and come to my palace. The words "with me" (אִתִּי) are taken by the LXX. and Vulgate as though written אֲתִי, the imperative of אָתָה, "to come," as a word of invitation, δεῦρο. The use of the verb תָּבואִי, "thou shalt come," i.e. thou hast come and be content, renders it improbable that such should be the reading, whereas the preposition with the pronoun is quite in place. The spiritual meaning is not far to seek. The life that we live without Christ is at best a life among the wild, untamed impulses of nature, and in the rough and dangerous places of the world. He invites us to go with him to the place which he has prepared for us. And so the Church will leave its crude thoughts and undeveloped life, and seek, in the love of Christ and in the gifts of his Spirit, a truer reflection of his nature and will (see Ephesians 4:14-16). The Apocalypse is based upon the same idea, the advancement of the kingdom of Christ from the place of lions and panthers to the new Jerusalem, with its perfection of beauty and its eternal peace.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) Come with me.--Better, to me. LXX., hither; so Vulg. and Luther, reading athi, imperative of athah, instead of itti = with me, or more properly, as regards me. The reading involved only a difference of vowel points, and is to be preferred. We have here another reminiscence of the obstacles which had attended the union of the pair under another figure. The course of true love, which never yet, in East or West, ran smooth, is beset here by tremendous difficulties, symbolised by the rocks and snows of the range of Lebanon, which shut in the poet's northern home, and the wild beasts that haunted these regions. Like Tennyson's shepherd, he believes that "love is of the valleys," and calls to her to come down to him from her inaccessible heights. The word Sh-r translated in English Version look, has properly in the LXX. its primitive meaning, come. To suppose a literal journey, as some do, to these peaks of the mountain chain one after another, is absurd. They are named as emblems of height and difficulty. Shenir (Senir, 1Chronicles 5:23) is one of the peaks of Hermon. Amana has been conjectured to be a name for the district of Anti-Libanus in which the Abana (Barada) has its source, but nothing is certain about it. The appellative spouse first occurs in this verse. In Hebrew it is khallah, and is translated in the Authorised Version either "daughter-in-law," or "bride," or "spouse," according as the relationship, now made complete by marriage, is regarded from the point of view of the parents of the bridegroom or of himself (e.g., daughter-in-law, Genesis 11:31; Genesis 38:11; Leviticus 20:22; Micah 7:6, &c; bride, Isaiah 49:18; Isaiah 61:10; Isaiah 62:5, &c.). Its use does not by itself prove that the pair were united in wedlock, because in the next verse the word sister is joined to spouse, and it may, therefore, be only a stronger term of endearment, and in any case, when put into the lover's mouth while describing the difficulties in the way of union, it is proleptic; but its presence strongly confirms the impression produced by the whole poem, that it describes over and over again the courtship and marriage of the same couple. For lion see Genesis 49:9. The leopard was formerly very common in Palestine, as the name Bethnimrah, i.e., house of leopards (Numbers 32:36) shows. (Comp. Jeremiah 5:6, Hosea 13:7.) Nor is it rare now. "In the forest of Gilead it is still so numerous as to be a pest to the herdsmen" (Tristram, Nat. Hist. of Bibl., p. 113). . . .