Song of Solomon 2:7

2:1-7 Believers are beautiful, as clothed in the righteousness of Christ; and fragrant, as adorned with the graces of his Spirit; and they thrive under the refreshing beams of the Sun of righteousness. The lily is a very noble plant in the East; it grows to a considerable height, but has a weak stem. The church is weak in herself, yet is strong in Him that supports her. The wicked, the daughters of this world, who have no love to Christ, are as thorns, worthless and useless, noxious and hurtful. Corruptions are thorns in the flesh; but the lily now among thorns, shall be transplanted into that paradise where there is no brier or thorn. The world is a barren tree to the soul; but Christ is a fruitful one. And when poor souls are parched with convictions of sin, with the terrors of the law, or the troubles of this world, weary and heavy laden, they may find rest in Christ. It is not enough to pass by this shadow, but we must sit down under it. Believers have tasted that the Lord Jesus is gracious; his fruits are all the precious privileges of the new covenant, purchased by his blood, and communicated by his Spirit; promises are sweet to a believer, and precepts also. Pardons are sweet, and peace of conscience sweet. If our mouths are out of taste for the pleasures of sin, Divine consolations will be sweet to us. Christ brings the soul to seek and to find comforts through his ordinances, which are as a banqueting-house where his saints feast with him.

The love of Christ, manifested by his death, and by his word, is the banner he displays, and believers resort to it. How much better is it with the soul when sick from love to Christ, than when surfeited with the love of this world! And though Christ seemed to have withdrawn, yet he was even then a very present help. All his saints are in his hand, which tenderly holds their aching heads. Finding Christ thus nigh to her, the soul is in great care that her communion with him is not interrupted. We easily grieve the Spirit by wrong tempers. Let those who have comfort, fear sinning it away.

Song of Solomon 2:7 . I charge you — This is spoken by the bride. By the roes — By the example of those creatures, which are pleasant and loving in their carriage toward one another; that ye stir not up, nor awake — That you do not disturb nor offend him; till he please — Never, as this word until, in such phrases, is commonly used. For neither can sin ever please him, nor can the church bear it, that Christ should ever be offended, or that her sweet fellowship with him should be interrupted.

(7) Roes. —Heb., tsebi, tsebiyah ; undoubtedly the ghazal of the Arabs; the gazelle. (See 1Chronicles 12:8 .) Hinds.—Heb., ayyalah. (See Genesis 49:21.) The LXX. strangely read, by the powers and virtues of the field. My love.—Here almost certainly in the concrete, though there is no instance of such use except in this and the corresponding passages. The Authorised Version, “till he please,” is a mistake in grammar. Read, till she please. The poet imagines his beloved sleeping in his arms, and playfully bids her companions keep from intruding on her slumbers. This verse (which is repeated in Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 8:4) marks natural breaks in the poem and adds to the dramatic effect. But there is no occasion to imagine a real stage, with actors grouped upon it. The “daughters of Jerusalem” are present only in the poet’s imagination. It is his manner to fancy the presence of spectators of his happiness and to call on outsiders to share his bliss (comp. Song of Solomon 3:11; Song of Solomon 5:16; Song of Solomon 6:13, &c), and it is on this imaginary theatre which his love conjures up that the curtain falls, here and in other places, on the union of the happy pair. Like Spenser, in his Epithalamium, this poet “unto himself alone will sing;” but he calls on all things bright and beautiful in the world of nature and man to help him to solemnise this joyful rite, and now the moment has come when he bids “the maids and young men cease to sing.”

Render: "I adjure you ... by the gazelles, or by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awaken love until it please." The King James Version, "my love," is misleading. The affection or passion in itself, not its object, is here meant. This adjuration, three times significantly introduced as a concluding formula (marginal references), expresses one of the main thoughts of the poem; namely, that genuine love is a shy and gentle affection which dreads intrusion and scrutiny; hence the allusion to the gazelles and hinds, shy and timid creatures. The complementary thought is that of Sol 8:6-7, where love is again described, and by the bride, as a fiery principle.

This verse is spoken either, 1. By the Bridegroom, who having reposed the sick church in his arms, chargeth them not to disturb her till she please , as the last clause in this case must be rendered. Or rather, 2. By the bride, as may be gathered, 1. From the connexion, because both the foregoing and following words are hers. 2. Because it was more decent for the bride than for the Bridegroom to give this charge to the bridemaids, the daughters of Jerusalem; and therefore in all places in this book where they are mentioned the person speaking to them is the bride, and not the Bridegroom, and particularly Song of Solomon 3:5 8:4 , where this verse is repeated, and is confessedly and evidently spoken by the spouse. Daughters of Jerusalem ; my bridemaids, friends, and members, over whom I have authority. By the hinds; either, 1. By the kindness you have to those pretty and amiable creatures, as you would not injure nor disturb them, nor drive them away, but please yourselves with the sight of them, as shepherds and country damsels commonly do. Or, 2. By the example of those creatures, which are pleasant and loving in their carriage towards one another. Of the field ; which have their usual abode in the fields. That ye stir not up, nor awake ; that you do not disturb nor offend him by your miscarriages, but permit him and me to enjoy a quiet repose. Do nothing to grieve him, or molest me. My love ; my dearly beloved, called love emphatically, to express her great passion for him

. So love is used Song of Solomon 7:6 , and in other authors. Till he please , i.e. never, as this word until , in such like phrases, is commonly used, as Genesis 28:15 2 Samuel 6:23 Isaiah 22:14 . For neither can sin ever please him, nor can the church bear it that Christ should ever be offended, or that her sweet fellowship with him should be interrupted.

7. by the roes—not an oath but a solemn charge, to act as cautiously as the hunter would with the wild roes, which are proverbially timorous; he must advance with breathless circumspection, if he is to take them; so he who would not lose Jesus Christ and His Spirit, which is easily grieved and withdrawn, must be tender of conscience and watchful (Eze 16:43; Eph 4:30; 5:15; 1Th 5:19). In Margin, title of Ps 22:1, Jesus Christ is called the "Hind of the morning," hunted to death by the dogs (compare So 2:8, 9, where He is represented as bounding on the hills, Ps 18:33). Here He is resting, but with a repose easily broken (Zep 3:17). It is thought a gross rudeness in the East to awaken one sleeping, especially a person of rank. my love—in Hebrew, feminine for masculine, the abstract for concrete, Jesus Christ being the embodiment of love itself (So 3:5; 8:7), where, as here, the context requires it to be applied to Him, not her. She too is "love" (So 7:6), for His love calls forth her love. Presumption in the convert is as grieving to the Spirit as despair. The lovingness and pleasantness of the hind and roe (Pr 5:19) is included in this image of Jesus Christ. Canticle II.—(So 2:8-3:5)—John the Baptist's Ministry.

7 . I charge you ] I adjure you . by the roes, and by the hinds of the field ] The tsěbhî , ‘roe,’ is according to Tristram ( Fauna and Flora of Palestine , p. 5) the gazelle, Gazella dorcas . He says, “It is extremely common in every part of the country S. of Lebanon. I have seen it in the Mount of Olives close to Jerusalem.” The ayyâlâh = ‘hind’ is the female of the ayyâl , which, according to Post, in Hastings’ Dict. of Bible , is the Cervus dama , the true ‘fallow deer.’ Tristram also thinks the fallow deer is meant, or perhaps the red deer, but the latter has not been found in Palestine. that ye stir not up , &c.] Rather, as R.V., that ye stir not up, nor awaken love, until it please . The adjuration does not refer to the rousing of a lover, but of the passion of love. The meaning is this. The speaker adjures the daughters of Jerusalem not to attempt any more to arouse or awake love. It should be allowed to rest until it awake of itself; and probably they are adjured by the gazelles and the hinds of the field because of the shyness and timidity of these creatures, or as Delitzsch suggests, because of their absolute freedom. The daughters of Jerusalem had been attempting to awake love for Solomon in her heart by fulsome praises of him, and she adjures them thus in order that they may cease from their vain attempt. This beautiful verse recurs at Song of Solomon 3:5 and Song of Solomon 8:4 , and forms a kind of refrain which marks the close of certain sections of the book.

Verse 7. - I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the toes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awaken love, until it please. The fact that these words occur again in Song of Solomon 3:5 and Song 8:4 shows that they are a kind of chorus or refrain. It is also evident that they are in the lips of Shulamith the bride. Some have suggested that they are uttered by some one else, e.g. the queen-mother subsequently referred to, Solomon himself, the heavenly Bridegroom, the shepherd lover from whom Shulamith had been taken. But all these suggestions are unnecessary and unsupported. The natural and simple view is that the same voice is speaking as in ver. 6. But what is the meaning of this adjuration? Is it merely, "I throw myself on the sympathy you have already expressed"? Ewald well remarks, "In common life people swore by things which belonged to the subject of conversation or were especially dear to the speaker. As, therefore, the warrior swears by his sword; as Mohammed by th e soul, of which he is just about to speak (see Koran, ch. 91:7); so here Shulamith by the lovely gazelles, since she is speaking of love." The Israelites were permitted to adjure by that which is not God, but they would only solemnly swear by God himself. Delitzsch thinks this is the only example of direct adjuration in Scripture without the name of God. The meaning has probably been sought too far away.