LEB SNG chapter 7

Solomon’s Praise of His Dancing Maiden

O royal princess![fn]

The curves of your[fn] are like[fn]
- the work of the hands of a craftsman.
- 2 is[fn] that does not lack mixed[fn] wine!
Your belly is a heap of wheat
- encircled with lilies.
- 3 are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
- 4 is like a tower of ivory; your eyes are pools in Heshbon at the gate of Beth Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon
- [fn]
- 5 [fn][fn] the flowing locks of your head are like[fn]
  - a king is held captive in the tresses!
- 6  O loved one in the delights!
- 7 [fn] is like the palm tree, and your breasts are like clusters.
- 8  I will lay hold of its fruit clusters.”
Let your breasts be pleasing like clusters of the vine
- and the scent of your breath like the apples.
- 9 is like the best wine that goes down for my beloved, smoothly gliding over my lips and teeth.[fn]

?:? Or “O daughter of leader”

?:? Literally “thigh”

?:? Literally “ornaments”

?:? Literally “a bowl of the roundness”

?:? Or “blended”

?:? Literally “looking out over the face of Damascus”

?:? Literally “Your head is on you like the Carmel”

?:? Because of its height and fertility, Mount Carmel is often associated with royalty

?:? Literally “the purple”

?:? Literally “this your height”

?:? Or “over lips of sleepers.” One Hebrew textual tradition preserves the reading “lips of those who sleep” (MT). Another Hebrew tradition reads “my lips and my teeth,” as reflected by the ancient versions (LXX, Latin Vulgate, Aramaic Targum, Syriac Peshitta). The latter is adopted here since it makes the most sense poetically

?:? Literally “I am for my beloved”

?:? Literally “and his desire is for me.” Or “and his desire belongs to me”

?:? Literally “go forth into the field”

?:? Or “lodge”

?:? Or “let us go”

?:? Or “sprouted”

?:? Literally “have bloomed”

?:? Or “over our doorways all choice things”

?:? Literally “new also old I have laid up”

LEB SNG Chapter 7