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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 Punt Reliefs of Hatshepsut 8:6 and Song of Solomon 4:6

Ancient Near East, Egyptian · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Hatshepsut's reliefs show workers measuring heaps of myrrh from Punt, the faraway land of incense the Egyptians called God's Land. In Song of Solomon 4, the lover heads for a mountain of myrrh and a hill of frankincense, picturing the woman as Punt.

Passages

Punt Reliefs of Hatshepsut 8:6

Ancient Near East, Egyptian · Deir el-Bahri Punt Expedition Inscriptions
Heaps of myrrh in great quantities. Measuring the fresh myrrh, in great quantities, for Amon, lord of Thebes; marvels of the countries of Punt, treasures of God's-Land, for the sake of the life, prosperity and health .... Recording in writing, reckoning the numbers, summing up in millions, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, thousands and hundreds; reception of the marvels of Punt, for Amon-Re, lord of Thebes, lord of heaven.
1470 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Punt Reliefs of Hatshepsut

Song of Solomon 4:6

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

References

“... Spurred on by theory (his meditations), he turns to praxis, going in quest of the “mountain of myrrh” and the “hill of frankincense.” If these metaphors were meant to refer to particular parts of the body, they would probably be the cheeks (cf. 5:13b) or the breasts. [...] The beloved as a whole, with all her “high places,” becomes a landscape (with mountains and hills)—more, a wonderland like Punt (eastern Sudan, northern Eritrea) in the Egyptian love lyrics (cf. 2:17). The expedition sent there about 1470 [...] by Queen Hatshepsut is described as a journey into wonderland. Her reliefs in Deir al-Bahri show how the weight of huge piles of red myrrh was determined (fig. 91). The inscription over the people reads: “Measuring fresh myrrh in great quantities. ... A wonder from the regions of Punt. Treasures of the land of the gods.” A love song already cited (see the commentary on 2:17) says: I embrace her, and her arms open wide, I am like a man in Punt. The speaker in 4:6 also no doubt hopes to be “like a man in Punt” as he makes his way to his “mountain of myrrh” and his “hill of frankincense.” ...”
Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 152.

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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Punt Reliefs of Hatshepsut 8:6 and Song of Solomon 4:6

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