Song of Solomon 4:13

4:8-15 Observe the gracious call Christ gives to the church. It is, 1. A precept; so this is Christ's call to his church to come off from the world. These hills seem pleasant, but there are in them lions' dens; they are mountains of the leopards. 2. As a promise; many shall be brought as members of the church, from every point. The church shall be delivered from her persecutors in due time, though now she dwells among lions, Ps 57:4. Christ's heart is upon his church; his treasure is therein; and he delights in the affection she has for him; its working in the heart, and its works in the life. The odours wherewith the spouse is perfumed, are as the gifts and graces of the Spirit. Love and obedience to God are more pleasing to Christ than sacrifice or incense. Christ having put upon his spouse the white raiment of his own righteousness, and the righteousness of saints, and perfumed it with holy joy and comfort, he is well pleased with it. And Christ walks in his garden unseen. A hedge of protection is made around, which all the powers of darkness cannot break through. The souls of believers are as gardens enclosed, where is a well of living water, Joh 4:14; 7:38, the influences of the Holy Spirit. The world knows not these wells of salvation, nor can any opposer corrupt this fountain. Saints in the church, and graces in the saints, are fitly compared to fruits and spices. They are planted, and do not grow of themselves. They are precious; they are the blessings of this earth.

Song of Solomon 4:13-14 . Thy plants are an orchard — Believers, which are planted in thee, are like the plants or fruits of an orchard, which are pleasant to the eye, and delicious to the taste or smell, whereby he signifies the variety and excellence of the gifts and graces in the several members of the church. Spike-nard — Which he mentions here with camphire, and in the next verse with saffron, because it is mixed with both these, and, being so mixed, yields the more grateful smell. All trees of frankincense — Such trees as produce frankincense.

(13) Thy plants. —Some have thought the offspring of the marriage intended here; but the poet is plainly, by a new adaptation of the language of flowers, describing the charms of the person of his beloved. Orchard.—Heb. pardes; LXX. παράδεισος; found only elsewhere in Nehemiah 2:8 (where see Note), Ecclesiastes 2:5. The pomegranate was perhaps an emblem of love, having been held sacred to the Syrian Venus. (See Tristram, Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 389.) Camphire.—See Note, Song of Solomon 1:14.

Orchard - This is the renderlng here and in Ecclesiastes 2:5 of "pardes" (see Nehemiah 2:8 note). The pomegranate was for the Jews a sacred fruit, and a characteristic product of the land of promise (compare Exodus 28:33-34 ; Numbers 20:5 ; Deuteronomy 8:8 ; 1 Kings 7:18 , 1 Kings 7:20 ). It is frequently mentioned in the Song, and always in connection with the bride. It abounds to this day in the ravines of the Lebanon. Camphire - Cyprus. See Sol 1:14 note. Songs 4:13-15 Seven kinds of spices (some of them with Indian names, e. g. aloes, spikenard, saffron) are enumerated as found in this symbolic garden. They are for the most part pure exotics which have formed for countless ages articles of commerce in the East, and were brought at that time in Solomon's ships from southern Arabia, the great Indian Peninsula, and perhaps the islands of the Indian Archipelago. The picture here is best regarded as a purely ideal one, having no corresponding reality but in the bride herself. The beauties and attractions of both north and south - of Lebanon with its streams of sparkling water and fresh mountain air, of Engedi with its tropical climate and henna plantations, of the spice-groves of Arabia Felix, and of the rarest products of the distant mysterious Ophir - all combine to furnish one glorious representation, "Thou art all fair!"

Thy plants, the plants of thy garden, believers which are planted in thee, are an orchard; are like the plants or fruits of an orchard, which are pleasant to the eye, and delicious to the taste or smell, such as are here mentioned in the following words; whereby he signifies the variety and excellency of gifts and graces in the several members of the church. Spikenard; which he mentions both here with camphire or cypress , and in the next verse with saffron , because it is mixed with both these, and being so mixed, yieldeth the more grateful smell.

13 . Thy plants are an orchard ] Better, Thy shoots make an orchard . These shoots denote all the bride’s charms. Orchard is in Heb. pardçs , which is merely a grander word for gan , and is originally Persian=‘a paradise.’ It is found elsewhere in the O.T. only in Nehemiah 2:8 and Ecclesiastes 2:5 . It is usually and rightly regarded as a proof of the late origin of this book. Cp. Introduction, § 4. pleasant fruits ] Lit. fruits of excellence , R.V. precious fruits . camphire ] Properly, henna . See note on ch. Song of Solomon 1:14 . spikenard ] Cp. ch. Song of Solomon 1:12 . Grätz for nerâdhîm reads werâdhîm = roses. Rather than that Budde would strike out the last three words as a repetition. But either suggestion would detract from the poetical character of the passage.

Verses 13, 14. - Thy shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits; henna with spikenard plants, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices. Thy shoots ; i.e. that which comes forth from thee, thy plants, or, as Bottcher puts it, "all the phenomena and life utterances of her personality." All the plants had their meaning in flower language. They are mostly exotics. But it is difficult now to suggest meanings, though they may have been familiar to Jewish readers at the time. The pardes , "park, or enclosure," was adorned especially with foreign and fragrant plants of great beauty. It is an Old Persian word, perhaps, as Delitzsch suggests, from pairi ( περὶ ) and dez (Pers. diz ), "a heap." Precious fruit ; literally, fructus laudam , "fruits of renown" or excellence (cf. Syriac magdo , "dried fruit"). The carcom , or saffron, a kind of crocus (Ind. safran ), yields the saffron colour from its dried flower eyes, used both as a cosmetic and as a medicine (cf. Sansc. kuakuma ). The calamus , simply a reed, the sweet reed, a corn indigenous to the East. Cinnamon ( Quinnamon ) , Laurus cinnamomum , is indigenous on the east coast of Africa and Ceylon, found later in the Antibes. The inner bark peeled off and roiled together forms the cinnamon bark (see Pliny, bk. 12). There are seven spices mentioned.

We need not trouble ourselves to identify them all, as they are mostly Indian, and such as Solomon would fetch from the far East in his celebrated ships. The description is highly poetical, and simply means that all sweetness and attractiveness combine in the fair one. But symbolically we may see an allusion to the spread of the Church over the world, and all the glory and honour of the nations" being introduced into it. So the graces of the individual soul expand themselves under the influence of Christian truth and fellowship. Song of Solomon 4:13

13 What sprouts forth for thee is a park of pomegranates, With most excellent fruits; Cypress flowers with nards; 14 Nard and crocus; calamus and cinnamon, With all kinds of incense trees; Myrrh and aloes, With all the chief aromatics. The common subject to all down to Sol 4:15 inclusive is שׁלחיך ("what sprouts for thee" equals "thy plants"), as a figurative designation, borrowed from plants, of all the "phenomena and life utterances" (Bttch.) of her personality. "If I only knew here," says Rocke, "how to disclose the meaning, certainly all these flowers and fruits, in the figurative language of the Orient, in the flower-language of love, had their beautiful interpretation." In the old German poetry, also, the phrase bluomen brechen to break flowers was equivalent to: to enjoy love; the flowers and fruits named are figures of all that the amata offers to the amator.