The king has brought me into his apartments,
But we exult and rejoice in thee,
We praise thy love more than wine,
The upright love thee.
5 I am swarthy, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
dently an interpolation from the first clause of the third verse, which the Vulgate, Percy, &c., follow.
The king has brought me, &c. It was the king, she tells us, who brought her into his apartments, and thus separated her from her beloved, in whom, however, she still delights. That this is the import of this clause is obvious from the words and connexion. The Shulamite began with invoking her absent beloved in the third person; but no sooner had she expressed her desire to be with him, than he is, as it were, present to her mind, and she forthwith, dropping the third person, addresses him in the second, and so continues to speak to him throughout the third verse. She begins the fourth verse in the same way, imploring her beloved, in the second person, to take her away, telling him that "the king, "HE," has brought her into his apartments" (mark the change from the second to the third person); and then continues and finishes her address to her beloved in the second person. Now we ask, do not the words [HE: hebiy'aniy ham.elek/^e Ha:doroyv], the king, "HE," has brought me into his apartments, placed between [HE: moS/^ekEniy 'aHa:reyk/o], do "THOU" draw me after thee, and [HE: nogiyloh v^eniS\^em^eHoh b.ok/^e vgv#], we exult and rejoice in "THEE," &c., clearly show that the king here referred to is a separate person from the beloved to whom the maiden is addressing herself? We venture to affirm that few readers of the original Hebrew, whose minds are not biassed by a preconceived theory, can carefully peruse these three verses without observing that TWO persons are here introduced—viz. the beloved to whom, and the king of whom, the damsel speaks. Ibn Ezra, Immanuel, the Anonymous MS. Commentary, &c., could not help seeing this, and explained the passage, "Were even the king to bring me into his apartments, I should rejoice and be glad in thee" (the shepherd). The Septuagint, which is followed by the Vulgate, has again [HE: d.ad.eyk/o], thy breast, instead of [HE: ddOeyk/o], thy love; but see supra, ver. 2.
The upright love thee. The word [HE: mEyS/oriym/], is explained by Rashi, Rashbam, Döpke, De Wette, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, &c., by sincerely, uprightly; Ibn Ezra, who is followed by Houbigant, takes it as an adjective for wine, i. e. [HE: yayin/ hOlEk/ l^emayS/oriym/], wine that glides down smoothly; and Ewald, Boothroyd, Magnus, Hitzig, &c., render it deservedly, justly. As for [HE: 'a:hEbv.k/o], it is either referred to [HE: `a:lomvOt], the damsels love thee more than wine (Ibn Ezra); or is taken impersonally, i.e. thou art sincerely or deservedly beloved. (Ewald, Magnus, &c.) But this is against the structure of these verses. For the second and third verses, consisting of five members, form one stanza, finishing with the words [HE: `a:lomvOt 'a:hEbv.k/o]; and it is evident that the fourth verse, also consisting of five members, is of the same structure, and that the concluding words [HE: mEyS/oriym/ 'a:hEbv.k/o], are intended to correspond to those at the end of the first stanza. [HE: mEyS/oriym/], therefore, must be taken as a parallelism with [HE: `a:lomvOt], and means the upright. So the Septuagint ([GR: eu)thy/tês ê)ga/pêse/ se], the abstract for concrete), Symmachus, ([GR: oi) eu)thei=s oi) a)gapa/ntes se],) the Vulgate (recti diligant te), the Chaldee ([HE: xad.iyqoyo' r^eHiymv.]), English Version (margin), Mendelssohn, Philippson, &c. [HE: mEyS/oriym/], the upright, is designedly chosen in preference to [HE: `a:lomvOt], damsels, in order to give an indirect and gentle blow to him who had separated her from her beloved. "Thee, the upright, and not the seduced love."
5. I am swarthy, &c. The court ladies, indignant at this statement, looked with affected disdain upon the
