For love is strong as death,
Affection as inexorable as Hades.
Its flames are flames of fire,
The flames of the Eternal.
7 Floods cannot quench love;
Streams cannot sweep it away.
If one should offer all his wealth for love,
He would be utterly despised.
ONE OF THE BROTHERS OF THE SHULAMITE.
8 Our sister is still young,
For love is strong as death, &c. True love seizes with a tenacious grasp. Like death, it rules with resistless sway; like Hades, it is never moved to give up its object: neither power nor prayer can overcome it. [HE: qoS/oh], hard, firm, inexorable. [HE: qin.^e'oh] is not jealousy (Sept., Vulg., Authorized Version, Percy, Kleuker, Good, Williams, &c.), but devout affection, ardent love (Ewald, Gesenius, De Wette, Noyes, Meier, Hitzig, Philippson &c.); it is here used as an intensitive term for love, as is evident from the parallelism and the connexion.
The flames of the Eternal. These words are exegetical of "flames of fire;" i. e. the flames of love, though having the same energy as those of fire, are not of the same origin; they emanate from the Eternal, the source of all love. Whether, with Ben Asher, we read [HE: S/al^ehobot^eyoh.], conjointly, like [HE: ma'a:pol^eyoh.], Jer. ii. 31; or with Ben Naphtali, [HE: S/al^ehebot yoh.], separately, which is followed by most editions, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and the majority of modern critics, and which is required by the parallelism; this predicate does not state that the flames of love are "most vehement," but affirms that they emanate from the Eternal. [HE: yoh], an abbreviation of [HE: yaha:veh] (see Kalish on Exod. iii. 14; xi. 2; Fürst, Lexicon, s. v.), like [HE: 'El], Isa. xiv. 13, is the genitive of cause or origin. Comp. [GR: ê( a)ga/pê e)k tou= Theou= e)/sti], 1 John iv. 7. [HE: S/al^ehEb], flame, may either be a quadriliteral, formed from [HE: S/ahEb], Arabic, to burn, with the insertion of the [HE: l] after the first radical, according to the analogy of [HE: zal^e`ap/], violent heat, (Ps. ii. 6), from the root [HE: zo`ap/], to be hot; or, which is more probable, is the Shaphel conjugation of [HE: lohab], to burn. Fürst, Lexicon, s. v.; Gesen. § 55, 6; Ewald, § 122 a. The Sept. has [GR: flo/ges au)tê=s], [HE: S/il^ehobOteyho]. That the original reading of the text was [HE: S/al^eha:bOteyho] [HE: S/al^eha:bOt yoh.] (Ewald, Döpke, Hitzig, &c.) is purely conjectural.
7. Floods cannot quench love. Being a flame of celestial origin no terrestrial influence, however great, can destroy or wash it away; it is not subjected to means resorted to for the extinction of ordinary fires. [HE: mayim/ rab.iym/], prop. much water, i. e. a great quantity of it (Numb. xx. 11), floods. [HE: S/oTap/], to wash, or sweep away, Job xiv. 19; Isa. xxviii. 17.
If one should offer all, &c. Such divine love spontaneously flows from the heart, and cannot be purchased with money; though one offered all his riches for it, they would be utterly despised. This affirmation, whilst true in itself, is levelled against the king, who attempted to gain love by flatteries and praises (vide supra, i. 11; vi. 8), but was utterly rejected (vii. 11). [HE: 'iyS/] any one, one, Gen. xiii. 16; Exod. xvi. 29; Gesen. § 122, Rem. 2. [HE: b.vOz], the infinitive absolute, is employed before the finite verb [HE: yobv.zv.], to express intensity, Gen. xliii. 3; 1 Sam. xx. 6; Gesen. § 131, 3 a; Ewald, § 280 b. [HE: yobv.zv.], the third person plural, is used for the passive, see supra, chap. viii. 1.
8. Our sister is still young, &c. The
