Page:The Song of Songs (1857).djvu/169

 Its interior tesselated most lovely By the daughters of Jerusalem.

A FOURTH.

11 Come out, ye daughters of Zion, And behold King Solomon; The crown with which his mother crowned him On the day of his espousals, On the day of his gladness of heart.

gives us a description of the procession of an Indian potentate, which strikingly resembles the one here depicted. "When the king shows himself in public, his servants go before him with silver censers, which fill the air, throughout the way along which he is borne in the palanquin, with delicious odour. He himself is reclining upon a golden couch, covered with pearls and veiled with purple curtains, embroidered with gold; the life-guard bring up the rear." [HE: r^epiydoh] (from [HE: ropad], to support, ii. 5), ''that which supports the back when sitting''; so the Sept. [GR: a)na/klinton]; Vulg. reclinatorium; Döpke, Rosenmüller, Hitzig, &c. [HE: mer^ek.ob], a seat, comp. Lev. xv. 9. The words [HE: t.vOkvO roxv.p/ 'aha:boh mib.^envOt] [HE: y^erv.S/.olayim/], are either to be translated: its centre is tesselated most lovely, by the daughters of Jerusalem;—the noun [HE: 'aha:boh] may be used adverbially for lovely, charmingly, comp. [HE: 'Oha:bEm/ n^edoboh], "I will love them freely," Hos. xiv. 4; Ewald, § 279 c, § 204; so Luther, Kleuker, Herder, De Wette, Rosenmüller, Philippson, &c.; and the [HE: m.in/] in [HE: mib.^envOt] may denote the author or instrument, see Isa. xxii. 3; xxviii. 7; Eccl. xii. 11; Gesen. Gram. § 143, 2;—or they may be rendered, the middle thereof is wrought, as expressive of their love, by the daughters of Jerusalem; taking [HE: 'aha:boh], love, for the effect, or proof of it; comp. [HE: dvOdiym/], i. 2, and [GR: a)ga/pê] in Greek; so Le Clerc, Bp. Percy, Drs. Good and Clark. The interior of these couches is generally painted with baskets of flowers and nosegays, intermixed with short sentences or mottoes, expressing the power of love.

11. Come out, O ye daughters, &c. As the royal train begins to enter the city, a fourth bystander calls the daughters of Zion to come out and see the monarch in his joyful attire. Thus the inspired writer beautifully puts into the mouth of several spectators the description he desires to give. The crown here mentioned is not the symbol of royalty, but the emblem of happiness (Job xix. 9). Crowns or chaplets of flowers were worn in ancient times on occasions of festivity and rejoicing; comp. Apocryp. Wisdom, ii. 7, 8. Conjugal life being regarded as the most happy, it became a custom among the Jews, as well as among other nations, to put crowns on the heads of the newly-married people. Rosenmüller, Orient. iv. 196. "In the Greek Church in Egypt," says Maillet, "the parties are placed before a reading-desk on which is the book of the Gospels, having two crowns upon it of flowers, cloth, or tinsel. The priest, after benedictions and prayers, places one on the bridegroom's, the other on the bride's head, covering both with a veil." (See also Talmud, Sotha, ix. 14; Selden, Uxor. Hebr. II. xv. 139; I. F. Hirt, de Coronis apud Hebraeos nuptialibus sposi sposaeque). The Jews still call the bridegroom [HE: melek/^e], and the bride [HE: mal^ek.oh]. The design of Solomon in putting on this crown is evidently to dazzle the rustic girl. The arrival and entrance of the royal train in the capital, recorded in verses 6-11, evidently show that the circumstances narrated in the preceding sections took place out of Jerusalem, and that the apartments into which the king brought the damsel, as stated in ch. i. 4, were not in the capital, but,