Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Song of Solomon 7:11
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
11 Up, my lover, we will go into the country, Lodge in the villages. Hitzig here begins a new scene, to which he gives the superscription: "Shulamith making haste to return home with her lov." The advocate of the shepherd-hypothesis thinks that the faithful Shulamith, after hearing Solomon's panegyric, shakes her head and says: "I am my beloved's." To him she calls, "Come, my beloved;" for, as Ewald seeks to make this conceivable: the golden confidence of her near triumph lifts her in spirit forthwith above all that is present and all that is actual; only to him may she speak; and as if she were half here and half already there, in the midst of her rural home along with him, she says, "Let us go out into the fields," etc. In fact, there is nothing more incredible than this Shulamitess, whose dialogue with Solomon consists of Solomon's addresses, and of answers which are directed, not to Solomon, but in a monologue to her shepherd; and nothing more cowardly and more shadowy than this lover, who goes about in the moonlight seeking his beloved shepherdess whom he has lost, glancing here and there through the lattices of the windows and again disappearing. How much more justifiable is the drama of the Song by the French Jesuit C. F. Menestrier (born in Sion 1631, died 1705), who, in his two little works on the opera and the ballet, speaks of Solomon as the creator of the opera, and regards the Song as a shepherd-play, in which his love-relation to the daughter of the king of Egypt is set forth under the allegorical figures of the love of a shepherd and a shepherdess! (Note: Vid., Eugne Despris in the Revue politique et litteraire 1873. The idea was not new. This also was the sentiment of Fray Luis de Leon; vid., his Biographie by Wilkens (1866), p. 209.) For Shulamith is thought of as a רעה shepherdess, Sol 1:8, and she thinks of Solomon as a רעה shepherd. She remains so in her inclination even after her elevation to the rank of a queen. The solitude and glory of external nature are dearer to her than the bustle and splendour of the city and the court. Hence her pressing out of the city to the country. השׂדה is local, without external designation, like rus (to the country). כּפרים (here and at Ch1 27:25) is plur. of the unused form כּפר (constr. כּפר, Jos 18:24) or כּפר, Arab. kafar (cf. the Syr. dimin. kafrûno, a little town), instead of which it is once pointed כּפר, Sa1 6:18, of that name of a district of level country with which a multitude of later Palest. names of places, such as כּפר נחוּם, are connected. Ewald, indeed, understands kephārim as at Sol 4:13 : we will lodge among the fragrant Al-henna bushes. But yet בּכּף cannot be equivalent to תּחת הכפרים; and since לין (probably changed from ליל) and השׁכים, Sol 7:13, stand together, we must suppose that they wished to find a bed in the henna bushes; which, if it were conceivable, would be too gipsy-like, even for a pair of lovers of the rank of shepherds (vid., Job 30:7). No. Shulamith's words express a wish for a journey into the country: they will there be in freedom, and at night find shelter (בכף, as Ch1 27:25 and Neh 6:2, where also the plur. is similarly used), now in this and now in that country place. Spoken to the supposed shepherd, that would be comical, for a shepherd does not wander from village to village; and that, returning to their home, they wished to turn aside into villages and spend the night there, cannot at all be the meaning. But spoken of a shepherdess,…
This public page shows a contextual excerpt from the locally available source text.
How to use this source
This excerpt is attributed to its named commentary. It is included as a historical study resource and should be evaluated in light of Scripture and other relevant evidence.
