On the Song of Songs: Part 3, the Conclusion (Two Seedline is Biblical Truth)

On the Song of Songs: Part 3, the Conclusion (Two Seedline is Biblical Truth)

Throughout the last few chapters of this Song of Songs, we have seen several allegories which describe sexual activity between lovers as the eating of fruit from trees, and also from a garden. In Song chapter 2, the bride described her husband as an apple tree and professed eating of his fruit, where it was explicit that the couple had been in the act of embracing one another in a bed, the husband having fallen asleep. Then, in a subsequent encounter in Song chapter 4, the husband described the bride as his garden, he described the wonder of her fruits, and the bride explicitly invited him to eat of them. Here, at the beginning of Song chapter 5, that encounter is not yet finished.

With that, we made assertions that the identification of these similes and metaphors as euphemisms for romantic sexual activity is irrefutable. Therefore, further comparing the similar metaphors which are found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a work which is approximately contemporary to the time of Abraham and which was still known to Judaeans at the time of Christ, and which also explicitly employs such metaphors in reference to sexual activity, and then also comparing the account of the temptation in Genesis chapter 3, it clearly becomes manifest that Genesis chapter 3 is describing an illicit act of sex in the garden of Eden as having been the cause of the fall of man. So we may conclude that here in this romantic and even erotic love poem, the wisdom of Solomon gives us the understanding by which we may honestly interpret the otherwise enigmatic allegories of trees and fruit in Genesis chapter 3, as Solomon had also done in different ways in his other writings, in Wisdom and in Proverbs. There has long been debate in Christian Identity circles over the language and allegories of Genesis chapter 3, and in the Song of Songs, the debate is settled.

While we have already discussed the passages in Proverbs where Solomon had described sexual activity with a harlot as “bread eaten in secret”, among other things, in Wisdom chapter 3 Solomon had described wicked men who took “foolish wives”, ostensibly meaning that they made foolish choices when they took wives. Therefore he spoke of them further and said that “13 Their offspring is cursed. Wherefore blessed is the barren that is undefiled, which hath not known the sinful bed: she shall have fruit in the visitation of souls. 14 And blessed is the eunuch, which with his hands hath wrought no iniquity, nor imagined wicked things against God: for unto him shall be given the special gift of faith, and an inheritance in the temple of the Lord more acceptable to his mind.” So we see that it is better to not have children, than to give birth to bastards. We know that this is the meaning, because a little further on he wrote “16 As for the children of adulterers, they shall not come to their perfection, and the seed of an unrighteous bed shall be rooted out.”

Then, in Wisdom chapter 4, he continued and wrote: “1 Better it is to have no children, and to have virtue: for the memorial thereof is immortal: because it is known with God, and with men. 2 When it is present, men take example at it; and when it is gone, they desire it: it weareth a crown, and triumpheth for ever, having gotten the victory, striving for undefiled rewards. 3 But the multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive, nor take deep rooting from bastard slips [an allegory of people as plants], nor lay any fast foundation. 4 For though they flourish in branches for a time; yet standing not last, they shall be shaken with the wind, and through the force of winds they shall be rooted out. 5 The imperfect branches shall be broken off, their fruit unprofitable, not ripe to eat, yea, meet for nothing [an allegory of people as trees and fruit]. 6 For children begotten of unlawful beds are witnesses of wickedness against their parents in their trial [not that they will testify, but that their very existence proves the guilt of their parents].” So not only did Solomon condemn race-mixing, but he compared the offspring of such adulterers to trees, branches and fruit, which, when understood in the context of his other writings both here and in Proverbs, also gives us further insight into the meanings of the allegories and metaphors employing descriptions of trees and fruit in Genesis chapter 3.

On many other occasions, nations, races and families of people are frequently described as plants, trees and fruit elsewhere in Scripture, in the prophets as well as in the parables and allegories in the Gospel of Christ. Therefore our conclusion concerning the meaning of Genesis chapter 3 comes not only from many of the Biblical scriptures in the New Testament, which we have elucidated on many occasions, but from the whole body of the works attributed to Solomon, the wisest of all men.

But there is always the question as to why Adam and Eve were permitted to eat of all the trees of the garden, if the trees were races of people. However a more careful reading of the instructions to Adam in Genesis chapter 2 reveals that only certain of the trees were metaphors for races of people. This is because the trees which Adam was permitted to eat grew “out of the ground”, as it states in Genesis 2:9. But two other trees mentioned there were only “in the midst of the garden”, and not growing “out of the ground”; only they are allegories for people. The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is associated with the serpent, and we learn from Christ in the Revelation that the same serpent was the leader of the rebellion of fallen angels which must have taken place before the creation of Adam, but was not revealed in Genesis. The Nephilim, or fallen ones, a term translated as giants, appear again in Genesis chapter 6.

Then in the Gospel of Christ, He Himself reveals that He is the Tree of Life, where in John chapter 15 He attests that “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman”, and speaking to His disciples a little later on in that chapter, that “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” So His people are part of the tree along with Him. Then in Revelation chapter 22 the Tree of Life, with twelve types of fruit, is depicted as growing on the banks of a river which proceeds from out of the throne of God. Ostensibly, the twelve fruits represent the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. So these two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, correspond to the race that would come of Adam and the race of the Fallen Angels. Adam was given one law, which is not to eat of that other tree. When he transgressed that law, he was certain to die, as was his wife. That same law was transgressed again in Genesis chapter 6, and for that the Flood of Noah came upon the land, destroying most of the descendants of Adam.

We know that this is so, that this is the reason for the punishment of man in both Genesis chapters 3 and 6, because as Paul of Tarsus had explained in Romans chapter 5, sin is not imputed where there is no law. Therefore since only one law was given to Adam, which was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, lest he die, and it is the transgression of that law for which he died, that being the only law in effect in Genesis chapter 6 we see it is the same law for which the Flood had come, after the children of Adam began to mingle in fornication with the Fallen Angels, or Nephilim.

Some may protest and claim that Cain was punished for his crime, but that is not true. There having been no law, Cain being a murderer was never punished according to the law. Rather, Cain was only denied a privilege, as Yahweh being the Lord of all, as all of the earth is His including the land upon which Cain had walked, only deprived him of profitting from the land which He rightfully owns. So Cain was told “12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” That is not a punishment; it is only a revocation of something which was previously granted to him freely.

But it was not the act of sex alone which caused the fall of man. If that were the case, then when Yahweh God created Adam, as it is described in Genesis chapter 1, He would not have given him the instruction to “Be fruitful, and multiply” in Genesis 1:28. Then, in Genesis chapter 2, Yahweh would not have created Eve so that she and Adam could become one flesh, being a helpmate by which he could become fruitful and multiply. So that shows that it was not merely sex, but an act of illicit sex which caused the fall of man, which is what Genesis chapter 3 describes.

Once all of this is understood, it is also irrefutable. The two trees are still here with us today, we are often warned of them in the Gospel, and if one is not of Adam, one must be a branch or shoot from that other tree. Anyone who denies these teachings is working, wittingly or unwittingly, to deceive men and lead them astray by convincing them that there is no seed of the serpent, which in turn leads them into committing blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. For this the world of today awaits the fire and fury of Yahweh, because just as Christ had said, as it was in the days of Noah, so it would be at the coming of the Son of Man. Every plant which Yahweh did not plant shall be rooted up and cast into the fire, and in that we see that what we call “two seedline” is indeed Biblical truth.

These last paragraphs were inspired in part by a recent encounter with followers of Ted Weiland. But what we call two-seedline is true, even if most of our predecessors did not have this complete picture which I have attempted to describe here in a few short paragraphs. Those who deny it are working for the devil, purposefully or not.

Now, as we proceed with chapter 5 of this Song of Songs, we are in the middle of the scene which began in chapter 4, where after the husband had described his bride as a garden and extolled the wonder of her fruits and her scents, she invited him to partake of her sexual pleasures where she exclaimed: “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.” Now this next chapter opens as the husband responds to that invitation.

Husband: 1 I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk:

The husband has already described his bride as a garden, and she has already invited him to come and eat of its pleasant fruits. So here the husband attests to having done that, with references to milk and honey. These are also apparent metaphors which stand as euphemisms for sexual pleasure, but the allusion to the children of Israel having been promised a land of milk and honey by Yahweh their God, their collective husband, should not be overlooked.

Now the last clause of this verse should have been separated by the translators, and in the King James Version it was not. Thus we read, after a colon following the word milk:

Omniscient Narrator / Author: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.

Neither is this an invitation for others to partake of the bride. Here we have an exclamation which apparently emanates from the husband, but which is made in reference to the couple, the husband and the bride, as a celebration of the figurative feast in which they were about to partake together. But the words are not necessarily uttered by either husband or bride. It is also unlikely, because of the setting, that they can be attributed to the Chorus. Rather, they seem to be an editorial exclamation from the viewpoint of an omniscient narrator or the author of the work.

So the New American Standard Bible separates the clause from the sentence which precedes and translates it to read “Eat, friends; Drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.” Likewise, the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible does the same, and renders the sentence to read as a pair of exclamations: “Eat friends, and drink! Yes – drink your fill, you lovers!” So it is fully evident that the friends are the lovers themselves, and not any other parties. Later in this chapter, in verse 16, the bride in her description of the husband informs the Chorus that he is indeed both her friend and her lover, or beloved. Apparently, the exclamation also ends the scene, so this first verse of Song chapter 5 may have been better placed at the end of chapter 4.

Furthermore, this is also the point where the copy of the Song in Dead Sea scroll labeled 4QCant^b ends, and as the introduction to the Song of Songs in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible explains, there is evidence in the manuscripts that it may have been intentional. That scroll, 4QCant^b, is also the copy of the Song which they further explained as having scribal errors and Aramaic words in the text. So the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has nothing more to offer until Song 6:11, as its introduction also explained that this portion of the work did not survive in the other scrolls, and that 4QCant^a had also intentionally either omitted the section from 4:8 through 6:10, or perhaps had included it in another and now lost section, which is less likely. One reason offered for this section’s having been omitted from 4QCant^a is the erotic content which the section contains. This seems plausible, as it begins with the scene of love-making where the husband had announced that his bride was a garden, and it ends with a similar scene where the husband is depicted as feeding among the lilies of his garden, which is his bride. However it is also implausible since, as we shall see, chapter 7 of the Song contains more of the same erotic imagery.

Now with verse 2 of chapter 5, which begins a new section which is fully attested in the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, there is a new scene, and the bride is once again fantasizing as she longs for her now-absent lover:

Bride: 2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.

Now the bride responds to the words attributed to the husband in her dream:

Bride: 3 I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

It is evident that the husband did not hear these words, but rather they are only in the thoughts of the bride as she fantasizes, as she is once again longing for her husband. Next, she imagines that he is coming for her.

Bride: 4 My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.

We may say that her inward parts, or even feelings, were aroused on account of him. So she continues:

Bride: 5 I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.

The words of this passage evoke those of Yahshua Christ in the Revelation, in chapter 3 where He said in the message to the church of the Laodiceans: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.” However in the subsequent statements of that message, Christ had assured His Church that He would not be elusive, as the bride now portrays the husband here:

Bride: 6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.

Because the Song is also an allegory of the relationship between Yahweh God and the children of Israel as His bride, and that is substantiated once more in the verse which follows, it is not unfair to say that these words should also evoke another writing of Solomon’s, a passage found in Proverbs chapter 1, but here in Proverbs Solomon uses Wisdom personified as his literary device, where he wrote: “20 Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: 21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, 22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? 23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. 24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: 29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: 30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.”

Now, in spite of the fact that the bride had already complained that she was ready for sleep, and not prepared to leave the house, thinking her lover was at the door we see her once again wandering the streets of the city in search for her lover. This certainly also represents the wanderings of the children of Israel in their sins, as a result of their own imaginings by which they had strayed from Yahweh their God.

Bride: 7 The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

As we have already asserted, it is implausible that an ancient noblewoman, especially the bride of a king, would be out wandering the streets at night, and if she were found in that state she would certainly not have been treated in the manner she was by men whose duty is to protect the city. So the allegorical interpretation is indeed the correct interpretation, even if that does not detract from the allegories describing the lovemaking of a husband and his bride. Now once again, the bride makes an announcement to the Chorus:

Bride: 8 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

She is “sick of love”, or better, she is weak from love, lovesick, as we might say in modern English. The Chorus now answers the bride as if she should go and find another lover, which also suggests the frequent sins of the idolatrous children of Israel:

Chorus: 9 What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?

Now the bride answers in response, describing what may distinguish her lover from others. In this answer, both the literal aspect, in relation to Solomon, and the allegorical aspect, in relation to God, must be true and accurate.

Bride: 10 My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. 11 His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven.

The word for white is צח, or tsach (Strong’s # 6703), is defined by Strong’s as dazzling, glowing, clear, or bright, and in the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon as dazzling, glowing or clear, however that reference also has a parenthetical remark which indicates that it means white in this context, relating to a man’s countenance. Here in this verse, in the Greek Septuagint it was translated as λευκός, and in the Latin Vulgate as candidus, and both words literally mean white. The word only appears on three other occasions in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 18:4 where it is clear, describing of the heat of the day upon plants, in Isaiah 32:4 where it is plainly in regard to a clarity of speech, and in Jeremiah 4:11 where it is dry, used to describe a wind.

The word for ruddy is the Hebrew word adam, which is also, as a proper noun, the name of the first man in Genesis, and as a common noun, the name describing each of his descendants as man (Strong’s # 120), a translation which is actually unfortunate. While there are other races of men in Scripture who did not descend from Adam, many of which are mentioned in later chapters of Genesis, they may be described by other Hebrew words for man, such as enosh, but they are not adam and they are not described by that term. It is apparent that adam is a term describing a ruddy man, especially since the blood under his white skin is the source of his ruddiness, and the Hebrew word for blood is dam (Strong’s # 1818). Another word, adamah (Strong’s # 127), which refers to reddish soil, was derived from adam. An adjective, admoniy (Strong’s # 132), means ruddy and appears in Scripture as ruddy.

Likewise, a head of fine gold is one that has been tanned by the sun, while the word for locks, קוצה or qevutsah (Strong’s # 6977), is an obscure word that only appears in this chapter of the Song, here and in verse 2, while the root word קוצה or qowts (Strong’s # 6975) is a thorn or thorns at Genesis 3:18 and Hosea 10:8. The word for bushy, תלתל or taltal is wavy or branchy, and in the Septuagint the word was translated as βόστρυχος, which Liddell & Scott define as either a curl or lock of hair, or anything twisted or wreathed. The word שחר or shachor is a common word for black. Another notable ancient prince, Hector of Troy, a hero of the Trojan War two hundred years before Solomon’s time, was described in Homer’s Iliad (Book XXII) as having had raven hair.

Bride: 12 His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. 13 His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh.

Some words were added to the text of the first clause of verse 12, which should only read, as it does from the New American Standard Bible, that “his eyes are like doves….” While many such allegories in the Song cannot be interpreted literally, otherwise the breasts of a woman would look like roes or gazelles, most species of dove seem to be grayish in color. Being washed with milk seems to refer to the whiteness of the eyeball. The flowery description of the husband’s cheeks once again reflects the ruddiness of his white complexion.

Bride: 14 His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.

Hands of gold also reflect the tanning of the sun, and beryl also reflects something yellowish in color. A belly white like ivory, overlaid with sapphires – or inlaid in the New American Standard Bible – seems to describe the blue veins which show through the white skin of a man who is in an athletic physical condition, since sapphires are blue.

Bride: 15 His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. 16 His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely.

The cedars of Lebanon were tall and straight. Once again, a White man in good physical condition would have blue veins appear through the skin of his legs, giving them an appearance like marble. The sockets of gold would be a reference to his feet and ankles, or also his lower legs, which would be tanned from the sun. Notice that the parts of the body which were typically exposed to the sun, the feet and ankles, hands and head, are all described as gold.

Finished with her description, the bride now turns once again to address the Chorus, as she has given this description to them.

Bride: This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

Throughout the Song, each lover describes their partner as both lover and friend. So we read in Isaiah chapter 48, speaking of Israel: “8 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.” Later, in John chapter 15, Christ tells His disciples that “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Evidently, being a wife or lover is not as extraordinary as being a wife and also being a friend.

Before we commence, however, we must make a short statement in support of our conclusion concerning this Song of Songs, and that is that if Solomon was a White man, which he clearly must have been from this description, then Adam was also a White man, as Solomon is his direct descendant, as it can be traced through the Scriptures. Since Adam’s declaration of a legitimate marriage, found in Genesis chapter 2, is that the woman should be flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, then the bride must be a White woman, or Solomon could not have described her as his sister. Yet in the descriptions of the bride later in this Song we shall see that she was certainly also White. Historically, it may be established that all of the Genesis 10 nations were originally White, and therefore if one is not White, then he is not from of one of those nations, he is not from of Adam, and he must be from of that other tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There are no other races of men or devils accounted for in the Creation account of Scripture, or in the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, who had come to “reveal things kept secret from the foundation of the world”, as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 13.

Now as chapter 6 of the Song opens, the Chorus responds to the words of the bride.

Chorus: 1 Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee.

In Brenton’s Septuagint, but not in the Greek edition of Rahlfs, this verse is numbered as verse 17 in chapter 5, so throughout chapter 6 the verse numbers in that edition are off, and they remain so through to the end of chapter 7.

Here the Chorus almost seems to be challenging the bride, as though they had already tempted her to consider other lovers, before she gave the description of her lover. But perhaps they accepted her description and are only eager to see him themselves. Now she answers in reply, as though she was aware of the husband’s arrival, or at least knew that his arrival was imminent.

Bride: 2 My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. 3 I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.

Once again, the garden is the bride herself, and where she states that “he feedeth among the lilies” that is also a reference to their sexual activity. But now the husband is present, although his appearance is not explained in an explicit manner. Perhaps he was in the process of arriving where the bride had said in the final verse of chapter 5 that “This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem”, where she may have been making an introduction as he arrived but was not yet seen by the Chorus, rather than merely making a reference to her description of him which she had just given while he was still absent.

So now the husband responds.

Husband: 4 Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners.

The word Tirzah is a personal name and a place name in Scripture, but it means favourable, pleasure or beauty. In the Septuagint it was translated with a word meaning satisfaction or approval, which Brenton translated as pleasure. In the Vulgate it is sweet.

The words an army were added to the text by the translators of the King James Version. The final clause is problematical, as other versions also make similar additions. The word translated as terrible, אים or ayom (Strong’s # 366) is defined as dreadful or terrible, but in the Septuagint it was translated as θάμβος, which means astonishing or amazing, among other things. The Hebrew word for banners, דגל or dagal, is a verb describing something looked at or conspicuous, but also used to describe something bannered or the carrying of banners. Since ayom is an adjective, we would translate the clause to say “… as comely as Jerusalem, as astonishing as a marvel.” We cannot imagine that a man would want a wife as dreadful as an army on the march.

Now, on account of her beauty, the husband begs.

Husband: 5 Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead. 6 Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them.

This description of the hair and teeth of the bride is nearly verbatim from when the husband had described her earlier, where the lines also appear in the opening verses of Song chapter 4.

Husband: 7 As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks.

This is also a reiteration of the husband’s description of his lover from earlier, in that same passage in Song chapter 4. But while the King James Version and others derived from the Masoretic Text omit a description of her lips which is found in the passage in chapter 4, here that is also repeated in the Septuagint version. Once again, the word for locks is properly a veil.

Husband: 8 There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number.

It is unclear here whether Solomon is making an allusion to the number of his own wives and concubines, as it is apparent from the historical records of Scripture that he had a great number of them, or whether he is referring to the wives and concubines of other kings, or whether he is only offering a rhetorical example and this is not a reference to any real world situation. But in any event, he is stating that the bride of the Song is far better than them all, and the next verse is comparing her to these, although that is not very clear in the transaltion.

Husband: 9 My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.

She is the one of her mother: the phrase evokes the use of the word μονογενής, or only begotten, in the New Testament. However here the meaning of the Hebrew idiom is apparent, where in both the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint a phrase which literally means “one of her mother” appears. In contrast, a word meaning only, rather than just one, is used where Isaac was described as Abraham’s only son, in Genesis 22:2, in spite of the fact that Abraham had another son. Citing that event in chapter 11 of his epistle to the Hebrews, Paul used the term μονογενής, whereby we may understand the term to refer to something special in its class. Here Solomon is describing his bride in that same manner. It is also apparent, that the daughters, who are the queens and concubines are all of the same nation, or mother, of the bride, if we interpret the word mother metaphorically of the nation.

Husband: 10 Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?

Once again, as it is a repeat of the same phrase found here in verse 4, in the phrase “terrible as an army with banners” the words for an army are not in the orginal language, or in the Greek of the Septuagint. In the Latin Vulgate there is a phrase, terribilis ut acies ordinata, which seems only to mean “awesome as banners”, although in the Douay-Rheims translation it is “terrible as an army set in array”. Once again, we would translate the Hebrew to say “as astonishing as a marvel”.

[The following paragraph contained an error, and was amended November 28th, 2021:]

The word for fair, יפה or yapheh (Strong’s # 3303), means fair or beautiful, or even handsome or pleasant, depending on the context, without any connotation of race or color. However where the fairness of the bride is compared to the moon, and her clarity to the sun, here the word for clear is בר or bar (Strong’s # 1249), which is pure or clean. But while there are several Hebrew words for moon, the word for moon here is לבנה or lebanah (Strong’s # 3842), a word which is related to Lebanon and Laban and means white. So we may certainly see that her countenance must be both white and bright.

Now the bride seems to be speaking in response to the husband:

Bride: 11 I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded. 12 Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib.

Where we read in verse 12 “Or ever I was aware”, in the Septuagint we see an exclamation where the bride promises that “There I will give you my breasts.” That version seems to be alone in that reading, as the Latin agrees with the Masoretic Text, and so does the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, which continues from the scroll 4QCant^a from where it resumes in this very verse, verse 11 of this chapter. 

The phrase “chariots of Amminadib”, or עמי־נדיב, is certainly obscure, as the word appears only here in Scripture. However there is a man named עמינדב, or Amminadab, which in the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text wants the Maqaf symbol separating the syllables as well as one letter. Amminadab was an ancestor of David and Solomon (Ruth 4:20) and captain of the hosts of Judah at the numbering of the children of Israel on the plains of Moab (Numbers 2:3). In the Septuagint the reading is Αμιναδαβ, and in the Latin Vulgate it is Aminadab, which in both cases in those languages, Greek and Latin, is virtually the same spelling as the name of Solomon’s ancestor wherever he is mentioned.

Therefore we might be tempted to amend this text to be a reference to him, but the children of Israel did not have chariots in the time of Amminadab, or at least, if they did it is never mentioned in the Book of Numbers, or even in the time of Joshua. So Amminadab certainly could not have been noted as a charioteer. But evidently it is the bride who is speaking these words, and the chariots of pharoah were mentioned by the husband earlier in the Song. The alternate reading of Amminadib provided in some lexicons, which is said to mean my willing people, seems to be nonsense. However the reading of the The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible is not, as it translates amminadib as my noble people and renders the verse to read “Before I realized it, my fancy placed me among the chariots of my noble people.” So following The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, we would prefer to read verse 12 in that fashion.

In Brenton’s Septuagint the following verse, 13, is found in the opening of chapter 7. The meaning of this next verse is also obscure, although it appears that it is spoken by the Chorus, and that is how we shall interpret it.

I am persuaded that the statement made by the bride, that her fancy had placed her among the chariots of her noble people, is not to be taken literally, but rather, that it is an allegory for how she felt when the husband takes her away, as we shall see in the opening verses of chapter 7 of the Song. So as he takes her away, the Chorus cries out:

Chorus: 13 Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee.

The word Shulamite is said in the lexicons to have no gender, but the verbs and other words which are feminine in their form seem to indicate that the epithet is describing the bride, and the reference is a call for her to return. The word Shulamite, שולמית or Shuwlamiyth (Strong’s # 7759), is said by Strong’s to mean the perfect or the peaceful one, however it is not defined in the entry in the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon. It was not translated in the Septuagint or in the Vulgate. But I must agree with Strong’s, who gives the root of the appellation from שלם or shalam (Strong’s # 7999, see also 8003), which means to be complete, or friendly or at peace.

Now the Chorus seems to be beckoning to the husband:

Chorus: What will ye see in the Shulamite?

Perhaps the Chorus said this to the husband as he had taken the bride away. Next, at the end of the final verse of the chapter, as the King James Version has it, the husband begins to answer the question. But we shall offer our own version at the beginning of chapter 7. So in the King James Version the husband is made to answer:

Husband: As it were the company of two armies.

This, in the context of a man speaking of his lover, is utter nonsense. This phrase should be moved to the beginning of the first sentence of verse 1 in chapter 7, and rendered “Like a dance of two camps…”, so we shall resume at that point when we return to complete our commentary on the Song of Songs. This evening we offered our conclusion regarding what we had learned from the Song up to this point, but it is not the conclusion of the Song itself.