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fire; no earthly power can suppress it by the strength of its assault, as streams drench all they sweep over in their flow - the flame of Jah is inextinguishable.
Nor can this love be bought; any attempt to buy it would be scorned and counted madness. The expressions is like Pro 6:30 f., cf. Num 22:18; 1Co 13:3. Regarding הון (from הוּן, (Arab.) han, levem esse), convenience, and that by which life is made comfortable, vid., at Pro 1:13. According to the shepherd-hypothesis, here occurs the expression of the peculiar point of the story of the intercourse between Solomon and Shulamith; she scorns the offers of Solomon; her love is not to be bought, and it already belongs to another. But of offers we read nothing beyond Song Sol 1:11, where, as in the following Sol 8:12, it is manifest that Shulamith is in reality excited in love. Hitzig also remarks under Sol 1:12 : “When the speaker says the fragrance of her nard is connected with the presence of the king, she means that only then does she smell the fragrance of nard, i.e., only his presence awakens in her heart pleasant sensations or sweet feelings.” Shulamith manifestly thus speaks, also emphasizing Sol 6:12, the spontaneousness of her relation to Solomon; but Hitzig adds: “These words, Sol 1:12, are certainly spoken by a court lady.” But the Song knows only a chorus of the “Daughters of Jerusalem” - that court lady is only a phantom, by means of which Hitzig's ingenuity seeks to prop up the shepherd-hypothesis, the weakness of which his penetration has discerned. As we understand the Song, Sol 8:7 refers to the love with which Shulamith loves, as decidedly as Sol 8:6 to the love with which she is loved. Nothing in all the world is able to separate her from loving the king; it is love to his person, not love called forth by a desire for riches which he disposes of, not even by the splendour of the position which awaited her, but free, responsive love with which she answered free love making its approach to her. The poet here represents Shulamith herself as expressing the idea of love embodied in her. That apple tree, where he awaked first love in her, is a witness of the renewal of their mutual covenant of love; and it is significant that only here, just directly here, where the idea of the whole is expressed more fully, and in a richer manner than at Sol 7:7, is God denoted by His name, and that by His name as revealed in the history of redemption. Hitzig, Ewald, Olshausen, Böttcher, expand this concluding word, for the sake of rhythmic symmetry, to שׁלהבתיה שׁלהבת יהּ its flames are flames of Jah; but a similar conclusion is found at Psa 24:6; Psa 48:7, and elsewhere. “I would almost close the book,” says Herder in his Lied der Lieder