---
title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah"
author: "Adam Clarke"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 778 of 914
url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/778/
cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 778. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/778/"
---

# Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah

*Adam Clarke*

Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 1 of 2.

## 778. Song of Solomon · 8 of 10

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/778/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/778/#p-N

### Verse 11

[¶1] His head is as the most fine gold - He has the most beautiful head, fine and majestic. Gold is here used to express excellence.

[¶2] His locks are bushy - Crisped or curled. This may refer to his mustachios.

[¶3] Black as a raven - His hair is black and glossy.

### Verse 12

[¶5] His eyes are as the eyes of doves - See on [Sol 4:1] (note).

[¶6] Washed with milk - The white of the eye, exceedingly white. By the use of stibium, in the East, the eye is rendered very beautiful; and receives such a lustre from the use of this article, that, to borrow the expression of a late traveler, "their eyes appear to be swimming in bliss." I believe this expression to be the meaning of the text.

[¶7] Fitly set - Or, as the margin, very properly, sitting in fullness; not sunk, not contracted.

### Verse 13

[¶9] His cheeks are as a bed of spices - Possibly meaning a bed in the garden, where odoriferous herbs grew. But it has been supposed to refer to his beard, which in a young well-made man is exceedingly beautiful. I have seen young Turks, who had taken much care of their beards, mustachios, etc., look majestic. Scarcely any thing serves to set off the human face to greater advantage than the beard, when kept in proper order. Females admire it in their suitors and husbands. I have known cases, where they not only despised but execrated Europeans, whose faces were close shaved. The men perfume their beards often; and this may be what is intended by spices and sweet-smelling myrrh.

[¶10] His lips like lilies - The שושנם shoshannim may mean any flower of the lily kind, such as the rubens lilium, mentioned by Pliny, or something of the tulip kind. There are tints in such flowers that bear a very near resemblance to a fine ruby lip.

### Verse 14

[¶12] His hands - gold rings set with the beryl - This really seems to refer to gold rings set with precious stones on the fingers, and perhaps to circlets or bracelets about the wrists. Some suppose it to refer to the roundness and exquisite symmetry of the hand and fingers. תרשיש tarshish, which we translate beryl, a gem of a sea-green tint, had better be translated chrysolite, which is of a gold color.

[¶13] His belly - bright ivory overlaid with sapphires - This must refer to some garment set with precious stones which went round his waist, and was peculiarly remarkable. If we take it literally, the sense is plain enough. His belly was beautifully white, and the blue veins appearing under the skin resembled the sapphire stone. But one can hardly think that this was intended.

### Verse 15

[¶15] His legs are as pillars of marble - Exquisitely turned and well-shaped; the sockets of gold may refer to his slippers. On these a profusion of gold and ornaments are still lavished in Asiatic countries.

[¶16] His countenance is as Lebanon - As Lebanon exalts its head beyond all the other mountains near Jerusalem, so my beloved is tall and majestic, and surpasses in stature and majesty all other men. He is also as straight and as firm as the cedars.

### Verse 16

[¶18] His mouth is most sweet - His eloquence is great, and his voice is charming. Every word he speaks is sweetness, mildness, and benevolence itself. Then, her powers of description failing, and metaphor exhausted she cries out, "The whole of him is loveliness. This is my beloved, and this is my companion, O ye daughters of Jerusalem."

### Introduction

[¶20] The companions of the bride inquire after the bridegroom, [Sol 6:1-3]. A description of the bride, [Sol 6:4-13].

### Verse 1

[¶22] Whither is thy beloved gone - These words are supposed to be addressed to the bride by her own companions, and are joined to the preceding chapter by the Hebrew and all the versions.

### Verse 2

[¶24] My beloved is gone down into his garden - The answer of the bride to her companions.

### Verse 4

[¶26] Beautiful - as Tirzah - This is supposed to be the address of Solomon to the bride. Tirzah was a city in the tribe of Ephraim, ([Jos 12:24]), and the capital of that district. It appears to have been beautiful in itself, and beautifully situated, for Jeroboam made it his residence before Samaria was built; and it seems to have been the ordinary residence of the kings of Israel, [1Kgs 14:17]; [1Kgs 15:21]. Its same signifies beautiful or delightful.

[¶27] Comely as Jerusalem - This was called the perfection of beauty, [Psa 48:2], [Psa 48:3]; [Psa 50:2]. And thus the poet compares the bride's beauty to the two finest places in the land of Palestine, and the capitals of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

[¶28] Terrible as an army with banners - This has been supposed to carry an allusion to the caravans in the East, and the manner in which they are conducted in their travels by night. The caravans are divided into companies, called cottors, according to Thevenet; and each company is distinguished by the form of the brazier in which they carry their lights. After night, these braziers are placed on the ends of long poles, and carried by a person who walks at the head of the company. Some have ten or twelve lights, and are of different forms; some triangular, or like an N; some like an M, by which each pilgrim readily knows his own company, both by night and day. A whole caravan, composed of many thousands of hadgees or pilgrims, divided into various cottors or companies, each having its own distinguishing brazier or light, must necessarily produce a very splendid, if not a terrible, appearance.

### Verse 5

[¶30] Turn away thine eyes - As the sight of so many fires after night was extremely dazzling, and the eye could not bear the sight, so the look of the bride was such as pierced the heart, and quite overwhelmed the person who met it. Hence the bridegroom naturally cries out, "Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me."

[¶31] Thy hair is as a flock of goats - See on [Sol 4:1] (note).

### Verse 6

[¶33] Thy teeth - See on [Sol 4:2] (note).

### Verse 7

[¶35] As a piece of a pomegranate - See on [Sol 4:3] (note).

### Verse 8

[¶37] There are threescore queens - Though there be sixty queens, and eighty concubines, or secondary wives, and virgins innumerable, in my harem, yet thou, my dove, my undefiled, art אצת achath, One, the Only One, she in whom I delight beyond all.

### Verse 9

[¶39] The daughters saw her, and blessed her - Not only the Jewish women in general spoke well of her on her arrival, but the queens and concubines praised her as the most accomplished of her sex.

[¶40] With this verse the fourth night of the marriage week is supposed to end.

### Verse 10

[¶42] Looketh forth as the morning - The bride is as lovely as the dawn of day, the Aurora, or perhaps the morning star, Venus. She is even more resplendent, she is as beautiful as the Moon. She even surpasses her, for she is as clear and bright as the Sun; and dangerous withal to look on, for she is as formidable as the vast collection of lights that burn by night at the head of every company in a numerous caravan. See the note on [Sol 6:4] (note). The comparison of a fine woman to the splendor of an unclouded full moon is continually recurring in the writings of the Asiatic poets.

### Verse 11

[¶44] I went down into the garden of nuts - I believe this and the following verse refer at least to the preparations for a farther consummation of the marriage, or examination of the advancement of the bride's pregnancy. But many circumstances of this kind are so interwoven, and often anticipated and also postponed, that it is exceedingly difficult to arrange the whole so as to ascertain the several parts, and who are the actors and speakers. But other writers find no difficulty here, because they have their system; and that explains all things.

[¶45] It is probably not the hazel but the almond nut, that is referred to here.