Song of Songs 6:4-9
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
The Beauty of the Woman
4 M Beautiful as Tirzah are you, my friend;[a]
fair as Jerusalem,
fearsome as celestial visions!
5 (A)Turn your eyes away from me,
for they stir me up.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
streaming down from Gilead.
6 (B)Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
that come up from the washing,
All of them big with twins,
none of them barren.
7 Like pomegranate halves,
your cheeks behind your veil.
8 Sixty are the queens, eighty the concubines,
and young women without number—
9 One alone[b] is my dove, my perfect one,
her mother’s special one,
favorite of the one who bore her.
Daughters see her and call her happy,
queens and concubines, and they praise her:
Footnotes
- 6:4–9 The man again celebrates the woman’s beauty. Tirzah: probably meaning “pleasant”; it was the early capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (1 Kgs 16). Celestial visions: the meaning is uncertain. Military images may be implied here, i.e., the “heavenly hosts” who fight along with God on Israel’s behalf (cf. Jgs 5:20), or perhaps a reference to the awesome goddesses of the region who combined aspects of both fertility and war.
- 6:9 One alone: the incomparability of the woman is a favorite motif in love poetry.
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