1 On my bed in the nights

I sought him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, and found him not.

She does not mean to say that she sought him beside herself on her couch; for how could that be of the modest one, whose home-bringing is first described in the next act - she could and might miss him there neither waking nor sleeping. The commencement is like Job 33:15. She was at night on her couch, when a painful longing seized her: the beloved of her soul appeared to have forsaken her, to have withdrawn from her; she had lost the feeling of his nearness, and was not able to recover it. לילות is neither here nor at Song of Solomon 3:8 necessarily the categ. plur. The meaning may also be, that this pain, arising from a sense of being forgotten, always returned upon her for several nights through: she became distrustful of his fidelity; but the more she apprehended that she was no longer loved, the more ardent became her longing, and she arose to seek for him who had disappeared.

2 So I will arise, then, and go about the city,

The markets, and the streets;

I will seek him whom my soul loveth! -

I sought him, and found him not.

How could this night-search, with all the strength of love, be consistent with the modesty of a maiden? It is thus a dream which she relates. And if the beloved of her soul were a shepherd, would she seek him in the city, and not rather without, in the field or in some village? No; the beloved of her soul is Solomon; and in the dream, Jerusalem, his city is transported close to the mountains of her native home. The resolution expressed by “I will arise, then,” is not introduced by “then I said,” or any similar phrase: the scene consists of a monologue which dramatically represents that which is experienced. Regarding the second Chatef-Pathach of ואס , vid ., Baer's Genesis , p. 7. שׁוקים is the plur of שׁוּק (= shavḳ ), as שׁורים of שׁוּר (= shavr ); the root-word שוק (Arab. shaḳ ) signifies to press on, to follow after continuously; (Arab.) suwaḳ designates perhaps, originally, the place to which one drives cattle for sale, as in the desert; (Arab.) sawaḳ designates the place to which one drives cattle for drink (Wetzst.). The form אבקשׁה is without the Daghesh , as are all the forms of this verb except the imper.; the semi-guttural nature of the Koph has something opposing the simple Sheva .

Shulamith now relates what she further experienced when, impelled by love-sorrow, she wandered through the city:

3 The watchmen who go about in the city found me:

“Have ye seen him whom my soul loveth?”

Here also (as in Song of Solomon 3:2) there is wanting before the question such a phrase as, “and I asked them, saying:” the monologue relates dramatically. If she described an outward experience, then the question would be a foolish one; for how could she suppose that the watchmen, who make their rounds in the city (Epstein, against Grהtz, points for the antiquity of the order to Psalms 127:1; Isaiah 62:6; cf. Isaiah 21:11), could have any knowledge of her beloved! But if she relates a dream, it is to be remembered that feeling and imagination rise higher than reflection. It is in the very nature of a dream, also, that things thus quickly follow one another without fixed lineaments. This also, that having gone out by night, she found in the streets him whom she sought, is a happy combination of circumstances formed in the dreaming soul; an occurrence without probable external reality, although not without deep inner truth:

4 Scarcely had I passed from them,

When I found him whom my soul loveth.

I seized him, and did not let him go

Until I brought him into the house of my mother,

And into the chamber of her that gave me birth.

כּמעט = paululum , here standing for a sentence: it was as a little that I passed, etc. Without שׁ , it would be paululum transii ; with it, paululum fuit quod transii , without any other distinction than that in the latter case the paululum is more emphatic. Since Shulamith relates something experienced earlier, אחזתּי is not fitly rendered by teneo , but by tenui ; and ארפּנּוּ dna ;iune לאו , not by et non dimittam eum , but, as the neg. of וארפנו , et dimisi eum , - not merely et non dimittebam eum , but et non dimisi eum . In Genesis 32:27 [26], we read the cogn. שׁלּח , which signifies, to let go (“let me go”), as הרפּה , to let loose, to let free. It is all the same whether we translate, with the subjective colouring, donec introduxerim , or, with the objective, donec introduxi ; in either case the meaning is that she held him fast till she brought him, by gentle violence, into her mother's house. With בּית there is the more definite parallel חדר lellar , which properly signifies ( vid ., under Song of Solomon 1:4), recessus , penetrale ; with אמּי , the seldom occurring (only, besides, at Hosea 2:7) הורה , part.f. Kal of הרה fo la , to conceive, be pregnant, which poetically, with the accus., may mean parturire or parere . In Jacob's blessing, Genesis 49:26, as the text lies before us, his parents are called הורי ; just as in Arab. ummâni , properly “my two mothers,” may be used for “my parents;” in the Lat. also, parentes means father and mother zeugmatically taken together.

The closing words of the monologue are addressed to the daughters of Jerusalem.

5 I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,

By the gazelles or the hinds of the field,

That ye awake not and disturb not love

Till she pleases.

We are thus obliged apparently to think of the daughters of Jerusalem as being present during the relation of the dream. But since Shulamith in the following Act is for the first time represented as brought from her home to Jerusalem, it is more probable that she represented her experience to herself in secret, without any auditors, and feasting on the visions of the dream, which brought her beloved so near, that she had him by herself alone and exclusively, that she fell into such a love-ecstasy as Song of Solomon 2:7; and pointing to the distant Jerusalem, deprecates all disturbance of this ecstasy, which in itself is like a slumber pervaded by pleasant dreams. In two monologues dramatically constructed, the poet has presented to us a view of the thoughts and feelings by which the inner life of the maiden was moved in the near prospect of becoming a bride and being married. Whoever reads the Song in the sense in which it is incorporated with the canon, and that, too, in the historical sense fulfilled in the N.T., will not be able to read the two scenes from Shulamith's experience without finding therein a mirror of the intercourse of the soul with God in Christ, and cherishing thoughts such, e.g. , as are expressed in the ancient hymn:

Quando tandem venies, meus amor?

Propera de Libano, dulcis amor!

Clamat, amat sponsula: Veni, Jesu,

Dulcis veni Jesu !