Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Song of Solomon 4:2
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
2 Thy teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep Which comes up from the washing All bearing twins, And a bereaved one is not among them. The verb קצב is, as the Arab. shows, in the sense of tondere oves, the synon. of גּזז. With shorn (not to be shorn) sheep, the teeth in regard to their smoothness, and with washed sheep in regard to their whiteness, are compared - as a rule the sheep of Palestine are white; in respect of their full number, in which in pairs they correspond to one another, the one above to the one below, like twin births in which there is no break. The parallel passage, Sol 6:6, omits the point of comparison of the smoothness. That some days after the shearing the sheep were bathed, is evident from Columella 7:4. Regarding the incorrect exchange of mas. with fem. forms, vid., under Sol 2:7. The part. Hiph. מתאימות (cf. διδυματόκος, Theocr. i. 25) refers to the mothers, none of which has lost a twin of the pair she had borne. In "which come up from the washing," there is perhaps thought of, at the same time with the whiteness, the saliva dentium. The moisture of the saliva, which heightens the glance of the teeth, is frequently mentioned in the love-songs of Mutenebbi, Hariri, and Deschami. And that the saliva of a clean and sound man is not offensive, is seen from this, that the Lord healed a blind man by means of His spittle. Song of Solomon (Canticles) 4:3
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