What Does Song of Solomon 1:2 Mean?

(2) **Love.**—Marg., *loves, i.e., *caresses or kisses, as the parallelism shows. The LXX., followed by the Vulg., read *breasts *(probably *dadaï *instead of *dôdaï*)*, *the origin of many fanciful interpretations: *e.g., *the two breasts = the two Testaments which breathe love, the first promising, the second revealing Christ. The reading is condemned by the obvious fact that the words are not spoken *to *but *by *a woman, the change of persons, from second to third, not implying a change of reference or speaker, but being an enallage frequent in sacred poetry. (Comp. Deuteronomy 32:15; Isaiah 1:29, &c) Instead of “let him kiss me,” many prefer the reading “let him give me to drink,” which certainly preserves the metaphor (comp. Song of Solomon 7:9), which is exactly that of Ben Jonson’s:— “Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I’ll not ask for wine.”