What Does Song of Solomon 2:7 Mean?

(7) **Roes.**—Heb., *tsebi, tsebiyah*; undoubtedly the *ghazal *of the Arabs; the *gazelle. *(See 1Chronicles 12:8.) **Hinds.**—Heb., *ayyalah. *(See Genesis 49:21.) The LXX. strangely read, *by the powers and virtues of the field.* **My love.**—Here almost certainly in the concrete, though there is no instance of such use except in this and the corresponding passages. The Authorised Version, “till *he *please,” is a mistake in grammar. Read, *till she please. *The poet imagines his beloved sleeping in his arms, and playfully bids her companions keep from intruding on her slumbers. This verse (which is repeated in Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 8:4) marks natural breaks in the poem and adds to the dramatic effect. But there is no occasion to imagine a real stage, with actors grouped upon it. The “daughters of Jerusalem” are present only in the poet’s imagination. It is his manner to fancy the presence of spectators of his happiness and to call on outsiders to share his bliss (comp. Song of Solomon 3:11; Song of Solomon 5:16; Song of Solomon 6:13, &c), and it is on this imaginary theatre which his love conjures up that the curtain falls, here and in other places, on the union of the happy pair. Like Spenser, in his *Epithalamium, *this poet “unto himself alone will sing;” but he calls on all things bright and beautiful in the world of nature and man to help him to solemnise this joyful rite, and now the moment has come when he bids “the maids and young men cease to sing.”