very speedily return to his longing, waiting bride.[1]
But apart from the circumstance that Shulamith is no longer a bride, but is married, and that the wedding festival is long past, there is not a syllable of that thought in the text; the words must at least have been אלי בּרח, if ברח signified generally to hasten hither, and not to hasten forth. Thus, at least as little as סב, Sol 2:17, without אלי, signifies “turn thyself hither,” can this בּרח mean “flee hither.” The words of the song thus invite Solomon to disport himself, i.e., give way to frolicsome and aimless mirth on these spicy mountains. As sov lecha is enlarged to sov demeh-lecha, Sol 2:17, for the sake of the added figures (vid., under Sol 2:9), so here berahh-lecha (Gen 27:43) is enlarged to berahh udemeh (udǎmeh) lecha. That “mountains of spices” occurs here instead of “cleft mountains,” Sol 2:17, has its reason, as has already been there remarked, and as Hitzig, Hoelem., and others have discovered, in the aim of the poet to conclude the pleasant song of love that has reached perfection and refinement with an absolutely pleasant word.
But with what intention does he call on Shulamith to sing to her beloved this בּרח, which obviously has here not the meaning of escaping away (according to the fundamental meaning, transversum currere), but only, as where it is used of fleeting time, Job 9:25; Job 14:2, the sense of hastening? One might suppose that she whom he has addressed as at home in gardens replied to his request with the invitation to hasten forth among the mountains, - an exercise which gives pleasure to a man. But (1) Solomon, according to Sol 2:16; Sol 6:2 f., is also fond of gardens and flowers; and (2) if he took pleasure in ascending mountains, it doubled his joy, according to Sol 4:8, to share this joy with Shulamith; and (3) we ask, would this closing scene, and along with it the entire series of dramatic pictures, find a satisfactory conclusion, if either Solomon remained and gave no response to Shulamith's call, or if he, as directed, disappeared alone, and left Shulamith by herself among the men who surrounded her? Neither of these two things can have been intended by the poet, who shows himself elsewhere a master in the art of composition. In Sol 2:17 the matter lies otherwise. There the love-relation is as yet in progress, and the abandonment of love to uninterrupted fellowship places a limit to itself. Now, however, Shulamith is married, and the summons is unlimited. It reconciles itself neither
- ↑ Similarly Godet: The earth during the present time belongs to the earthly power; only at the end shall the bridegroom fetch the bride, and appear as the heavenly Solomon to thrust out the false and fleshly, and to celebrate the heavenly marriage festival.
