The repetition is literal, but yet not without change in the expression, - there, גל מהר, here, מן־הגּל; there, הקּץ, tonsarum, here, הרח, agnarum (Symm., Venet. τῶν ἀμναìδων); for רחל, in its proper signification, is like the Arab. rachil, richl, richleh, the female lamb, and particularly the ewe. Hitzig imagines that Solomon here repeats to Shulamith what he had said to another donna chosen for marriage, and that the flattery becomes insipid by repetition to Shulamith, as well as also to the reader. But the romance which he finds in the Song is not this itself, but his own palimpsest, in the style of Lucian's transformed ass. The repetition has a morally better reason, and not one so subtle. Shulamith appears to Solomon yet more beautiful than on the day when she was brought to him as his bride. His love is still the same, unchanged; and this both she and the reader or hearer must conclude from these words of praise, repeated now as they were then. There is no one among the ladies of the court whom he prefers to her, - these must themselves acknowledge her superiority.
Verses 8-9
Sol 6:8-9 8 There are sixty queens, And eighty concubines, And virgins without number. 9 One is my dove, my perfect one, - The only one of her mother, The choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her and called her blessed, - Queens and concubines, and they extolled her.
Even here, where, if anywhere, notice of the difference of gender was to be expected, המּה stands instead of the more accurate הנּה (e.g., Gen 6:2). The number off the women of Solomon's court, 1Ki 11:3, is far greater (700 wives and 300 concubines); and those who deny the Solomonic authorship of the Song regard the poet, in this particular, as more historical than the historian. On our part, holding as we do the Solomonic authorship of the book, we conclude from these low numbers that the Song celebrates a love-relation of Solomon's at the commencement of his reign: his luxury had not then reached the enormous height to which he, the same Solomon, looks back, and which he designates, Ecc 2:8, as vanitas vanitatum. At any rate, the number of 60 מלכות, i.e., legitimate wives of equal rank with himself, is yet high enough; for, according to 2Ch 11:21, Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines. The 60 occurred before, at Sol 3:7. If it be a round number, as sometimes, although rarely, sexaginta is thus used (Hitzig), it may be reduced only to 51, but not further, especially here, where 80 stands along with it. פילגשׁ (פּלּגשׁ), Gr. παìλλαξ παλλακηì (Lat. pellex), which in the form פּלּקתּא (פּלקתא)
