Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Song of Solomon 8:11
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
It now lies near, at least rather so than remote, that Shulamith, thinking of her brothers, presents her request before her royal husband: 11 Solomon had a vineyard in Baal-hamon; He committed the vineyard to the keepers, That each should bring for its fruit A thousand in silv. 12 I myself disposed of my own vineyard: The thousand is thine, Solomon, And two hundred for the keepers of its fruit! The words לשׁ היה כּרם are to be translated after כרמוגו, Kg1 21:1, and לידידי ... , Isa 5:1, "Solomon had a vineyard" (cf. Sa1 9:2; Sa2 6:23; Sa2 12:2; Kg2 1:17; Ch1 23:17; Ch1 26:10), not "Solomon has a vineyard," which would have required the words לשׁ כרם, with the omission of היה. I formerly explained, as also Bttcher: a vineyard became his, thus at present is his possession; and thus explaining, one could suppose that it fell to him, on his taking possession of his government, as a component part of his domain; but although in itself לו היה can mean, "this or that has become one's own" (e.g., Lev 21:3), as well as "it became his own," yet here the historical sense is necessarily connected by היה with the נתן foll.: Solomon has had ... , he has given; and since Solomon, after possession the vineyard, would probably also preserve it, Hitzig draws from this the conclusion, that the poet thereby betrays the fact that he lived after the time of Solomon. But these are certainly words which he puts into Shulamith's mouth, and he cannot at least have forgotten that the heroine of his drama is a contemporary of Solomon; and supposing that he had forgotten this for a moment, he must have at least once read over what he had written, and could not have been so blind as to have allowed this היה which had escaped him to stand. We must thus assume that he did not in reality retain the vineyard, which, as Hitzig supposes, if he possessed it, he also "probably" retained, whether he gave it away or exchanged it, or sold it, we know not; but the poet might suppose that Shulamith knew it, since it refers to a piece of land lying not far from her home. For המון בּעל, lxx Βεελαμών, is certainly the same as that mentioned in Judith 8:3, according to which Judith's husband died from sunstroke in Bethulia, and was buried beside his fathers "between Dothaim and Balamoon" (Note: This is certainly not the Baal-meon (now Man) lying half an hour to the south of Heshbon; there is also, however, a Meon (now Man) on this the west side of Jordan, Nabal's Maon, near to Carmel. Vid., art. "Maon," by Kleuker in Schenkel's Bibl. Lex.) (probably, as the sound of the word denotes, Belmen, or, more accurately, Belman, as it is also called in Judith 4:4, with which Kleuker in Schenkel's Bibl. Lex., de Bruyn in his Karte, and others, interchange it; and חמּון, Jos 19:28, lying in the tribe of Asher). This Balamoon lay not far from Dothan, and thus not far from Esdrelon; for Dothan lay (cf. Judith 3:10) south of the plain of Jezreel, where it has been discovered, under the name of Tell Dotan, in the midst of a smaller plain which lies embosomed in the hills of the south. (Note: Vid., Robinson's Physical Geogr. of the Holy Land, p. 113; Morrison's Recovery of Jerusalem (1871), p. 463, etc.) The ancients, since Aquila, Symm., Targ., Syr., and Jerome, make the name of the place Baal-hamon subservient to their allegorizing interpretation, but only by the aid of soap-bubble-like fancies; e.g., Hengst. makes Baal-hamon designate the world; nothrim \[keepers\], the nations; the 1000 pie…
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