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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 4:15 and John 4:14

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

Song of Solomon describes a woman as a spring of living water and a well of fresh streams. In John, Jesus draws on this Jewish marital imagery at Jacob’s well, promising living water that becomes an internal spring of eternal life.

Passages

Song of Solomon 4:15

Hebrew Bible · Song of Songs
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.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Song of Solomon

John 4:14

New Testament
13 Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
90–110 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in John

References

"... Moreover, John enhances the literary artistry of the scene through the use of banter spiced with what the Gospel's readers would have recognized to be sexually suggestive: references to wells and cisterns, fountains and living water, especially when made by a man and a woman at a well, are overflowing with innuendo. Proverbs advises young men: "Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?" (5:15-16); Song of Songs refers to a woman as "a well of living water" (4:15). ..."
Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2006), 131–132.

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 4:15 and John 4:14

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