Song of Solomon 2:17

2:14-17 The church is Christ's dove; she returns to him, as her Noah. Christ is the Rock, in whom alone she can think herself safe, and find herself easy, as a dove in the hole of a rock, when struck at by the birds of prey. Christ calls her to come boldly to the throne of grace, having a great High Priest there, to tell what her request is. Speak freely, fear not a slight or a repulse. The voice of prayer is sweet and acceptable to God; those who are sanctified have the best comeliness. The first risings of sinful thoughts and desires, the beginnings of trifling pursuits which waste the time, trifling visits, small departures from truth, whatever would admit some conformity to the world; all these, and many more, are little foxes which must be removed. This is a charge to believers to mortify their sinful appetites and passions, which are as little foxes, that destroy their graces and comforts, and crush good beginnings. Whatever we find a hinderance to us in that which is good, we must put away. He feedeth among the lilies; this shows Christ's gracious presence among believers. He is kind to all his people. It becomes them to believe this, when under desertion and absence, and so to ward off temptations. The shadows of the Jewish dispensation were dispelled by the dawning of the gospel day. And a day of comfort will come after a night of desertion. Come over the mountains of Bether, the mountains that divide, looking forward to that day of light and love.

Song of Solomon 2:17 . Until the day-break — Until the morning of that blessed day of the general resurrection, when all the shadows, not only of ignorance, and sin, and calamity, but even of all ordinances, and outward administrations, shall cease. Turn, my beloved — Return to me. For although Christ had come to her, and she had gladly received him, yet he was gone again, as is here implied, and evidently appears from the following verse. Which sudden change is very agreeable to the state of God’s people in this world, where they are subject to frequent changes; be thou like a roe — In swiftness; make haste to help me; upon the mountains of Bether — A place in the land of promise, where it seems those creatures were in great abundance.

(17) Until the day break. —Heb., breathe, i.e., becomes cool, as it does when the evening breeze sets in. The time indicated is therefore evening, “the breathing blushing hour” (Campbell). (Comp. Genesis 3:8 , “The cool of the day”—margin, wind. This interpretation is also fixed by the mention of the flying, i.e., lengthening shadows. Comp. Virg. Ecl. i. 84: “Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbræ;” and Tennyson, The Brook — “We turned our foreheads from the falling sun, And followed our own shadows, thrice as long As when they followed us.”) Bether.—Marg., of division; LXX., of ravines or hollows, either as separating the lovers or as intersected by valleys. Gesenius compares Bethron (2Samuel 2:29).

Until the day break - Or, rather, until the day breathe, i. e., until the fresh evening breeze spring up in what is called Genesis 3:8 "the cool" or breathing time of the day. And the shadows flee - i. e., Lengthen out, and finally lose their outlines with the sinking and departure of the sun (compare Jeremiah 6:4). As the visit of the beloved is most naturally conceived of as taking place in the early morning, and the bride is evidently dismissing him until a later time of day, it seems almost certain that this interpretation is the correct one which makes that time to be evening after sunset. The phrase recurs in Sol 4:6. Mountains of Bether - If a definite locality, identical with Bithron, a hilly district on the east side of the Jordan valley 2 Samuel 2:29, not far from Mahanaim (Sol 6:13 margin). If used in a symbolic sense, mountains of "separation," dividing for a time the beloved from the bride. This interpretation seems to be the better, though the local reference need not be abandoned.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away; until the morning of that great and blessed day of the general resurrection and judgment, when all the shadows, not only of ignorance, and sin, and calamity, but even of all ordinances and outward administrations, shall cease, and make way for the immediate enjoyment of my Beloved. And this clause may be joined either, 1. With the foregoing words; and so the sense is, Christ doth and will abide with his church as long as this life and world lasts; which agrees with Christ’s promises of being with his church to the end of the world, Matthew 28:20 . But neither that nor this place imply that Christ will then forsake his people, but only secures God’s people against that which was the chief, if not only, matter of their fear, to wit, lest Christ should leave them, and cast them off in this life, which, if he did not, they were assured that hereafter they should be ever with the Lord, 1 Thessalonians 4:17 . For it is well known, and hath been oft observed already, that the word until doth not always exclude the time to come. Or, 2. With the following words, Turn thou, my Beloved, until the day break, & c. Turn; return to me.

For although Christ had come to her, and she had gladly received and embraced him, yet he was gone again, as is here implied, and evidently appears from the next following verse; which sudden change is very agreeable both to the nature and method of such dramatical writings and amatorious transactions, and to the state of God’s people in this world, where they are subject to frequent changes and vicissitudes of Christ’s withdrawing from them, and returning to them again. Like a roe or a young hart, in swiftness; make haste to help me, for I am ready to faint. Bether; a place in the Land of Promise, possibly the same called Bithron , 2 Samuel 2:29 , where it seems those creatures were in great abundance, or where they were commonly hunted, and so being pursued, they made all possible haste to escape.

17. Night—is the image of the present world (Ro 13:12). "Behold men as if dwelling in subterranean cavern" [Plato, Republic, 7.1]. Until—that is, "Before that," &c. break—rather, "breathe"; referring to the refreshing breeze of dawn in the East; or to the air of life, which distinguishes morning from the death-like stillness of night. Maurer takes this verse of the approach of night, when the breeze arises after the heat of day (compare Ge 3:8, Margin, with Ge 18:1), and the "shadows" are lost in night (Ps 102:11); thus our life will be the day; death, the night (Joh 9:4). The English Version better accords with (So 3:1). "By night" (Ro 13:12). turn—to me. Bether—Mountains of Bithron, separated from the rest of Israel by the Jordan (2Sa 2:29), not far from Bethabara, where John baptized and Jesus was first manifested. Rather, as Margin, "of divisions," and Septuagint, mountains intersected with deep gaps, hard to pass over, separating the bride and Jesus Christ. In So 8:14 the mountains are of spices, on which the roe feeds, not of separation; for at His first coming He had to overpass the gulf made by sin between Him and us (Zec 4:6, 7); in His second, He will only have to come down from the fragrant hill above to take home His prepared bride. Historically, in the ministry of John the Baptist, Christ's call to the bride was not, as later (So 4:8), "Come with me," but "Come away," namely, to meet Me (So 2:2, 10, 13).

Sitting in darkness (Mt 4:16), she "waited" and "looked" eagerly for Him, the "great light" (Lu 1:79; 2:25, 38); at His rising, the shadows of the law (Col 2:16, 17; Heb 10:1) were to "flee away." So we wait for the second coming, when means of grace, so precious now, shall be superseded by the Sun of righteousness (1Co 13:10, 12; Re 21:22, 23). The Word is our light until then (2Pe 1:19).

17 . Alarmed for his safety, she now exhorts her lover to depart till the evening when he might return with greater safety. Until the day break ] R.V. Until the day be cool , lit. until the day blow , i.e. until the evening wind rises; cp. Genesis 3:8 , where ‘at the wind of the day’ is properly rendered by the A.V. “in the cool of the day,” i.e. when the sun has lost its power. ‘When the shadows flee away,’ therefore, does not denote dispersion of the shades of night by the rising sun, but the disappearance of the shadows of rocks, trees, &c., when the sun sets. be thou like , &c.] make thyself like a gazelle or a young hart on the cleft-riven mountains , i.e. flee swiftly away. The Heb. for the last clause is al hârç bether . There are three possible ways of explaining the word bether . (1) It may be a proper name, as the A.V. takes it to be, following some of the Greek versions (cp. Hastings’ Bible Dict .). (2) It may mean a division or cleft. The analogy of the word bithrôn , 2 Samuel 2:29 , which appears to denote a mountain ravine, as the words there are, “they went through all the bithron ” or ravine, would support this. It may be that ‘the ravine’ had become a proper name, just as ‘the valley’ has become in some places; but it probably was originally a mere descriptive name. This is the view of the LXX, and if that analogy holds hârç bether would mean cleft-riven mountains , as we have translated it.

In the only other passages where bether occurs, Genesis 15:10 , Jeremiah 34:18-19 , it means the part of an animal cut in two at the making of a covenant. Reasoning from this, Ewald and others prefer to render mountains of separation , i.e. mountains that separate; but if the view of the situation which we have taken be correct, the Shulammite is not separated from her lover by mountains, for he is at her window. (3) Some authorities take bether to be a contraction of μαλάβαθρον, Lat. malabathron , and hold it to be some aromatic plant. But there is a difficulty in finding out what malabathron was. If, as some maintain, it is the equivalent of the Sanscrit tamalapatra and means the betel plant, then our phrase would mean ‘hills planted with betel.’ But the betel palm which bears the betel nut grows only in S. India, Ceylon, Siam, the Malay Archipelago, and the Philippine Islands, and nothing is known of either it or the betel vine (the plant in the leaves of which the betel nut is eaten) having been grown in Palestine. Moreover, the betel nut and leaf are not used for their perfume, as most who take bether as betel seem to suppose. They are not aromatic to any great extent, and they are cultivated and collected only for use as a masticatory ( Enc. Brit . III. 616). There would appear, however, to have been another malabathron (cp. Field’s Hexapla , II. 416, quotations, and Horace, Carm . II. 8 with Macleane’s note), from which unguents were made.