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Song of Solomon

Song of Songs

About this book
Chapter 4

1 The Lover to His Beloved: Oh, you are beautiful, my darling! Oh, you are beautiful! Your eyes behind your veil are like doves. Your hair is like a flock of female goats descending from Mount Gilead.⁠ 2 Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep coming up from the washing place; each of them has a twin, and not one of them is missing. 3 Your lips are like a scarlet thread; your mouth is lovely. Your forehead behind your veil is like a slice of pomegranate. 4 Your neck is like the tower of David built with courses of stones; one thousand shields are hung on it—all shields of valiant warriors. 5 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of the gazelle grazing among the lilies. 6 Until the dawn arrives and the shadows flee, I will go up to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense.⁠ 7 You are altogether beautiful, my darling! There is no blemish in you! 8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Descend from the crest of Amana,⁠ from the top of Senir, the summit of Hermon, from the lions’ dens and the mountain haunts of the leopards. 9 You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride!⁠ You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. 10 How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine; the fragrance of your perfume is better than any spice! 11 Your lips drip sweetness like the honeycomb, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue.⁠ The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. 12 The Lover to His Beloved: You are a locked garden, my sister, my bride; you are an enclosed spring, a sealed-up fountain. 13 Your shoots are a royal garden full of pomegranates with choice fruits:⁠ henna with nard,⁠ 14 nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon⁠ with every kind of spice, myrrh and aloes with all the finest spices. 15 You are a garden spring, a well of fresh water⁠ flowing down from Lebanon. 16 The Beloved to Her Lover: Awake, O north wind; come, O south wind! Blow on my garden so that its fragrant spices may send out their sweet smell.⁠ May my beloved come into his garden and eat its delightful fruit!

Texts in conversation

Compare Song of Solomon 4:13 and Sirach 24:13

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

In Song of Solomon, the woman is described as a fragrant garden of nard, saffron, cinnamon, and Lebanon spice. Sirach draws on the same garden imagery for Wisdom personified as a woman, who grows tall as cedar, palm, and rose.

Passages

Song of Solomon 4:13

Hebrew Bible · Song of Songs
11 Your lips drip sweetness like the honeycomb, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. 12 The Lover to His Beloved: You are a locked garden, my sister, my bride; you are an enclosed spring, a sealed-up fountain. 13 Your shoots are a royal garden full of pomegranates with choice fruits: henna with nard, 14 nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon with every kind of spice, myrrh and aloes with all the finest spices. 15 You are a garden spring, a well of fresh water flowing down from Lebanon. 16 The Beloved to Her Lover: Awake, O north wind; come, O south wind! Blow on my garden so that its fragrant spices may send out their sweet smell. May my beloved come into his garden and eat its delightful fruit!
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Song of Solomon

Sirach 24:13

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
12 I took root in a people that was honored, even in the portion of the Lord’s own inheritance. 13 I was exalted like a cedar in Lebanon, And like a cypress tree on the mountains of Hermon. 14 I was exalted like a palm tree on the sea shore, like rose bushes in Jericho, and like a fair olive tree in the plain. I was exalted like a plane tree. 15 Like cinnamon and aspalathus, I have given a scent to perfumes. Like choice myrrh, I spread abroad a pleasant fragrance, like galbanum, onycha, stacte, and as the smell of frankincense in the tabernacle. 16 Like the terebinth, I stretched out my branches. My branches are glorious and graceful. 17 Like the vine, I put forth grace. My flowers are the fruit of glory and riches.
195–180 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sirach

References

... Verses 13–17 form a poetic unit in which Wisdom compares herself and her beauty to trees and plants that have a high symbolic value. Surprisingly, many scholars have so far overlooked the obvious connection between Sirach 24:13–17 with the Song of Songs. The geographical names in verses 13–14 (Lebanon, Hermon, En-Gedi and Jericho) confine the boundaries of Wisdom, and her realm seems to be identical with Israel. There is truly an amazing number of lexical similarities between Sirach 24:13–17 and the Song of Songs, especially when the geographical names and the names of trees, plants and fragrances are in question. ... Even though there are no verbatim quotations in Sirach from the Song of Songs, the employed images and metaphors are mostly the same. There can be no doubt that Ben Sira was well familiarised with the love lyrics. Precisely from this genre he chooses the numerous words with which he describes the beauty and attraction of Wisdom. Throughout his book Ben Sira several times warns about a bad and unfaithful wife and loose women (e.g., Sirach 9:1–9; 23:22–27; 25:16–26), and it is conceivable that Lady Wisdom is introduced as an ideal female companion. She is the complete opposite of seductive and dangerous women ...
Marko Marttila, Foreign Nations in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: A Jewish Sage between Opposition and Assimilation, DCLS 13 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 106–108.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Song of Solomon 4:13 and Sirach 24:13

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