Texts in Conversation
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.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Song of Solomon 4:13
Song of Songs
Hebrew Bible
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!
Sirach 24:13
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
12 I took root in an honored people, in the portion of the Lord, his heritage. 13 "I grew tall like a cedar in Lebanon, and like a cypress on the heights of Hermon. 14 I grew tall like a palm tree in En-gedi, and like rosebushes in Jericho; like a fair olive tree in the field, and like a plane tree beside water I grew tall. 15 Like cassia and camel's thorn I gave forth perfume, and like choice myrrh I spread my fragrance, like galbanum, onycha, and stacte, and like the odor of incense in the tent. 16 Like a terebinth I spread out my branches, and my branches are glorious and graceful. 17 Like the vine I bud forth delights, and my blossoms become glorious and abundant fruit.
Search:
Notes and 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 ...
Marttila, Marko
Foreign Nations in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: A Jewish Sage between Opposition and Assimilation
(pp. 106-108) De Gruyter, 2012
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.