How could this night-search, with all the strength of love, be consistent with the modesty of a maiden? It is thus a dream which she relates. And if the beloved of her soul were a shepherd, would she seek him in the city, and not rather without, in the field or in some village? No; the beloved of her soul is Solomon; and in the dream, Jerusalem, his city is transported close to the mountains of her native home. The resolution expressed by “I will arise, then,” is not introduced by “then I said,” or any similar phrase: the scene consists of a monologue which dramatically represents that which is experienced. Regarding the second Chatef-Pathach of ואס, vid., Baer's Genesis, p. 7. שׁוקים is the plur of שׁוּק (= shavḳ), as שׁורים of שׁוּר (= shavr); the root-word שוק (Arab. shaḳ) signifies to press on, to follow after continuously; (Arab.) suwaḳ designates perhaps, originally, the place to which one drives cattle for sale, as in the desert; (Arab.) sawaḳ designates the place to which one drives cattle for drink (Wetzst.). The form אבקשׁה is without the Daghesh, as are all the forms of this verb except the imper.; the semi-guttural nature of the Koph has something opposing the simple Sheva.
Verse 3
Shulamith now relates what she further experienced when, impelled by love-sorrow, she wandered through the city: 3 The watchmen who go about in the city found me: “Have ye seen him whom my soul loveth?”
Here also (as in Sol 3:2) there is wanting before the question such a phrase as, “and I asked them, saying:” the monologue relates dramatically. If she described an outward experience, then the question would be a foolish one; for how could she suppose that the watchmen, who make their rounds in the city (Epstein, against Grätz, points for the antiquity of the order to Psa 127:1; Isa 62:6; cf. Isa 21:11), could have any knowledge of her beloved! But if she relates a dream, it is to be remembered that feeling and imagination rise higher than reflection. It is in the very nature of a dream, also, that things thus quickly follow one another without fixed lineaments. This also, that having gone out by night, she found in the streets him whom she sought, is a happy combination of circumstances formed in the dreaming soul; an occurrence without probable external reality, although not without deep inner truth:
Verse 4
Sol 3:4 4 Scarcely had I passed from them, When I found him whom my soul loveth. I seized him, and did not let him go Until I brought him into the house of my mother, And into the chamber of her that gave me birth. כּמעט =
