Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Song of Solomon 8:6
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
After Solomon has thus called to remembrance the commencement of their love-relation, which receives again a special consecration by the reference to Shulamith's parental home, and to her mother, Shulamith answers with a request to preserve for her this love. 6 Place me as a signet-ring on thy heart, As a signet-ring on thine arm! For strong as death is love; Inexorable as hell is jealousy: Its flames are flames of fire, A flame of Jah. 7 Mighty waters are unable to quench such love, And rivers cannot overflow it. If a man would give All the wealth of his house for love, - He would only be contemned. The signet-ring, which is called חותם (חתם, to impress), was carried either by a string on the breast, Gen 38:18, or also, as that which is called טבּעת denotes (from טבע, to sink into), on the hand, Jer 22:24, cf. Gen 41:42; Est 3:12, but not on the arm, like a bracelet, Sa2 1:10; and since it is certainly permissible to say "hand" for "finger," but not "arm" for "hand," so we may not refer "on thine arm" to the figure if the signet-ring, as if Shulamith had said, as the poet might also introduce her as saying: Make me like a signet-ring (כּחותם) on thy breast; make me like a signet-ring "on thy hand," or "on thy right hand." The words, "set me on thy heart," and "(set me) on thine arm," must thus also, without regard to "as a signet-ring," express independent thoughts, although שׂימני is chosen (vid., Hag 2:23) instead of קחני, in view of the comparison. (Note: Of the copy of the Tra, which was to be the king's vade-mecum, it is said, Sanhedrin 21b: עושה אותה כמין קמיע ותולה בזרוע, but also there the amulet is thought of not as fastened to the finger, but as wound round the arm.) Thus, with right, Hitzig finds the thought therein expressed: "Press me close to thy breast, enclose me in thine arms." But it is the first request, and not the second, which is in the form עכל־זרועך, and not על־זרועתיך (שׁימני), which refers to embracing, since the subject is not the relation of person and thing, but of person and person. The signet-ring comes into view as a jewel, which one does not separate from himself; and the first request is to this effect, that he would bear her thus inalienably (the art. is that of the specific idea) on his heart ( Exo 28:29); the meaning of the second, that he would take her thus inseparably as a signet-ring on his arm (cf. Hos 11:3 : "I have taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms"), so that she might lie always on his heart, and have him always at her side (cf. Psa 110:5): she wishes to be united and bound to him indissolubly in the affection of love and in the community of life's experience. The reason for the double request following כּי, abstracted from the individual case, rises to the universality of the fact realized by experience, which specializes itself herein, and celebrates the praise of love; for, assigning a reason for her "set me," she does not say, "my love," nor "thy love," but אהבה, "love" (as also in the address at Sol 7:7). She means love undivided, unfeigned, entire, and not transient, but enduring; thus true and genuine love, such as is real, what the word denotes, which exhausts the conception corresponding to the idea of love. קנאה, which is here parallel to "love," is the jealousy of love asserting its possession and right of property; the reaction of love against any diminution of its possession, against any reserve in its response, the "self-vindication of angry love." (Note:…
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