into his house, the bride by the bridegroom.” But, correctly, Jerome, the Venet., and Luther: “Thou wouldest (shouldest) instruct me;” also the Targ.: “I would conduct thee, O King Messiah, and bring Thee into the house of my sanctuary; and Thou wouldest teach me (וּתאלּף יתי) to fear God and to walk in His ways.” Not her mother, but Solomon, is in possession of the wisdom which she covets; and if he were her brother, as she wishes, then she would constrain him to devote himself to her as her teacher. The view, favoured by Leo Hebraeus (Dialog. de amore, c. III), John Pordage (Metaphysik, III 617 ff.), and Rosenmüller, and which commends itself, after the analogy of the Gîtagovinda, Boethius, and Dante, and appears also to show itself in the Syr. title of the book, “Wisdom of the Wise,” that Shulamith is wisdom personified (cf. also Sol 8:2 with Pro 9:2, and Pro 8:3; Pro 2:6 with Pro 4:8), shatters itself against this תלמדני; the fact is rather the reverse: Solomon is wisdom in person, and Shulamith is the wisdom-loving soul,[1] - for Shulamith wishes to participate in Solomon's wisdom. What a deep view the “Thou wouldest teach me” affords into Shulamith's heart! She knew how much she yet came short of being to him all that a wife should be. But in Jerusalem the bustle of court life and the burden of his regal duties did not permit him to devote himself to her; but in her mother's house, if he were once there, he would instruct her, and she would requite him with her spiced wine and with the juice of the pomegranates. הרקח יין, vinum conditura, is appos. = genitiv. יין הרקח, vinum conditurae (ἀρωματίτης in Dioscorides and Pliny), like יין תּר, Psa 6:5, לחץ מים 1Ki 22:27, etc., vid., Philippi's Stat. Const. p. 86. אשׁקך carries forward אשּׁקך in a beautiful play upon words. עסיס designates the juice as pressed out: the Chald. עסּי corresponds to the Heb. דּרך, used of treading the grapes. It is unnecessary to render רמּני as apoc. plur., like מנּי, Psa 45:9 (Ewald, §177a); rimmoni is the name she gives to the pomegranate trees belonging to her, - for it is true that this word, rimmon, can be used in a collective sense (Deu 8:8); but the connection with the possessive suff. excludes this; or by 'asis rimmoni she means the pomegranate must (cf. ῥοΐ́της = vinum e punicis, in Dioscorides and Pliny) belonging to her. Pomegranates are not to be thought of as an erotic symbol;[2] they are named as something beautiful and precious. “O Ali,” says a proverb of Sunna,
