Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Song of Solomon 7:2
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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 navel is a well-rounded basin - Let not mixed wine be wanting to it Thy body is a heap of wheat, Set round with lilies. In interpreting these words, Hitzig proceeds as if a "voluptuary" were here speaking. He therefore changes שׁררך into שׁררך, "thy pudenda." But (1) it is no voluptuary who speaks here, and particularly not a man, but women who speak; certainly, above all, it is the poet, who would not, however, be so inconsiderate as to put into the mouths of women immodest words which he could use if he wished to represent the king as speaking. Moreover (2) שׁר = (Arab.) surr, secret (that which is secret; in Arab. especially referred to the pudenda, both of man and woman), is a word that is (Note: Vid., Tebrzi, in my work entitled Jud.-Arab. Poesien, u.s.w. (1874), p. 24.) foreign to the Heb. language, which has for "Geheimnis" secret the corresponding word סוד (vid., under Psa 2:2; Psa 25:14), after the root-signification of its verbal stem (viz., to be firm, pressed together); and (3) the reference - preferred by Dpke, Magnus, Hahn, and others, also without any change of punctuation - of שׁר to the interfeminium mulieris, is here excluded by the circumstance that the attractions of a woman dancing, as they unfold themselves, are here described. Like the Arab. surr, שׁר (= shurr), from שׁרר, to bind fast, denotes properly the umbilical cord, Eze 16:4, and then the umbilical scar. Thus, Pro 3:8, where most recent critics prefer, for לשׁרּך, to read, but without any proper reason, לשׁרך = לשׁארך, "to thy flesh," the navel comes there into view as the centre of the body, - which it always is with new-born infants, and is almost so with grown-up persons in respect of the length of the body, - and as, indeed, the centre. whence the pleasurable feeling of health diffuses its rays of heat. This middle and prominent point of the abdomen shows itself in one lightly clad and dancing when she breathes deeply, even through the clothing; and because the navel commonly forms a little funnel-like hollow (Bttch.: in the form almost of a whirling hollow in the water, as one may see in nude antique statues), therefore the daughters of Jerusalem compare Shulamith's navel to a "basin of roundness," i.e., which has this general property, and thus belongs to the class of things that are round. אגּן does not mean a Becher (a cup), but a Bechen (basin), pelvis; properly a washing basin, ijjanah (from אגן = ajan, to full, to wash = כּבּס); then a sprinkling basin, Exo 24:6; and generally a basin, Isa 22:24; here, a mixing basin, in which wine was mingled with a proportion of water to render it palatable (κρατήρ, from κεραννύναι, temperare), - according to the Talm. with two-thirds of water. In this sense this passage is interpreted allegorically, Sanhedrin 14b, 37a, and elsewhere (vid., Aruch under מזג). מזג .)מז is not spiced wine, which is otherwise designated ( Sol 8:2), but, as Hitzig rightly explains, mixed wine, i.e., mixed with water or snow (vid., under Isa 5:22). מזג is not borrowed from the Greek μίσγειν (Grtz), but is a word native to all the three chief Semitic dialects, - the weaker form of מסך, which may have the meaning of "to pour in;" but not merely "to pour in," but, at that same time, "to mix" (vid., under Isa 5:22; Pro 9:2). סהר, with אגּן, represents the circular form (from סהר = סחר), corresponding to the navel ring; Kimchi thinks that the moon must be understood (cf. שׂהרון, lunula): a moon-like round basin; according to w…
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