Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Song of Solomon 7:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
1a How beautiful are thy steps in the shoes, O prince's daughter! The noun נדיב, which signifies noble in disposition, and then noble by birth and rank (cf. the reverse relation of the meanings in generosus), is in the latter sense synon. and parallel to מלך and שׂר; Shulamith is here called a prince's daughter because she was raised to the rank of which Hannah, Sa1 2:8, cf. Psa 113:8, speaks, and to which she herself, 6:12 points. Her beauty, from the first associated with unaffected dignity, now appears in native princely grace and majesty. פּעם (from פּעם, pulsare, as in nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus) signifies step and foot, - in the latter sense the poet. Heb. and the vulgar Phoen. word for רגל; here the meanings pes and passus (Fr. pas, dance-step) flow into each other. The praise of the spectators now turns from the feet of the dancer to her thighs: 1b The vibration of thy thighs like ornamental chains, The work of an artist's hands. The double-sided thighs, viewed from the spine and the lower part of the back, are called מתנים; from the upper part of the legs upwards, and the breast downwards (the lumbar region), thus seen on the front and sidewise, חלצים or ירכים. Here the manifold twistings and windings of the upper part of the body by means of the thigh-joint are meant; such movements of a circular kind are called חמּוּקים, from חמק, Sol 5:6. חלאים is the plur. of חלי = (Arab.) ḥaly, as חבאים (gazelles) of צבי = zaby. The sing. חלי (or חליה = Arab. hulyah) signifies a female ornament, consisting of gold, silver, or precious stones, and that (according to the connection, Pro 25:2; Hos 2:15) for the neck or the breast as a whole; the plur. חל, occurring only here, is therefore chosen because the bendings of the loins, full of life and beauty, are compared to the free swingings to and fro of such an ornament, and thus to a connected ornament of chains; for חם are not the beauty-curves of the thighs at rest, - the connection here requires movement. In accordance with the united idea of חל, the appos. is not מעשׂי, but (according to the Palestin.) מעשׂה (lxx, Targ., Syr., Venet.). The artist is called אמּן (ommân) (the forms אמן and אמן are also found), Syr. avmon, Jewish-Aram. אוּמן; he has, as the master of stability, a name like ימין, the right hand: the hand, and especially the right hand, is the artifex among the members. (Note: Vid., Ryssel's Die Syn. d. Wahren u. Guten in d. Sem. Spr. (1873), p. 12.) The eulogists pass from the loins to the middle part of the body. In dancing, especially in the Oriental style of dancing, which is the mimic representation of animated feeling, the breast and the body are raised, and the forms of the body appear through the clothing. Song of Solomon (Canticles) 7:2
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