Thy body is like a heap of wheat, Hedged round with lilies.
4 Thy bosom is like two young fawns,
Twins of a gazelle.
2, the vinum aromatites of the Greeks
and Romans. (Comp. Ps. lxxv. 9;
Prov. ix. 5; Isa. v. 22; Mishna, Maaser
sheni, ii. 1; Baba Mez. v. 2; Pliny,
Hist. Nat. xiv. 15; Gesen. Thesaurus,
p. 808; Winer, Bib. Dict. s. v.) [HE: S/or^erEk/^e]
is one of the few instances in which
[HE: ``"] are resolved before suffixes, owing
to the broadness of the vowels when
preceding [HE: l], or [HE: r]. Comp. [HE: g.al] with suffix
[HE: g.al^elvO]: [HE: xil^elvO xal]: [HE: hara:rom/ har], Ewald, § 265;
Fürst, Lexicon, s.v. [HE: —gal]. The particle
[HE: 'al] expresses a subjective wish,
Gesen. Lexicon, [HE: 'al], ii. 6, Ewald, § 320.
Thy body is like a heap of wheat, &c. The point of analogy seems to subsist between the appearance of the body and that of a quantity of corn heaped up, [HE: `a:ramoh], which Ibn Ezra well explains [HE: `bh mlmTh vdqh mlm`lh]; so also Rashbam. Remembering that corpulency was deemed essential to an Eastern beauty, this comparison will appear obvious. Selden, who is followed by others, takes this passage as a prediction of the bride's fertility: as:—"Wheat and barley were among the ancient Hebrews emblems of fertility; and it was usual for standers-by to scatter these grains upon the married couple, with a wish that they might increase and multiply." Uxor Hebraica, lib. ii. cap. 15. "A custom," adds Williams, "which might probably originate from this passage, or vice versâ."
But though it is true that it was a common practice among the Jews at marriages to distribute among the company dried seeds (Talm. Chethuboth, ii. 1), probably to indicate a wish that the newly-married couple might be fruitful, it does not follow that it was the practice at so early an age, or that it is the meaning here. Were this the sense here, we should expect that the Jewish commentators, who well knew and practised the manners and customs of their own people, would have recognised it. Whereas, Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, &c., explain this figure as referring to the appearance.
Hedged round with, &c. The threshing-floors in ancient times were in the open air; and when the wheat had been threshed out, fanned and heaped up, each heap was stuck round with thorns, in order to keep off the cattle. (Hos. ii. 5, 6.) To render the figure more beautiful, and the compliment more flattering, the enamoured king changes the hedge of thorns into a fence of lilies. Others, however, refer these words to a robe embroidered with lilies, covering her body; and others, again, to some ancient custom of surrounding or covering the newly-threshed heap of wheat with a sort of garland of flowers, indicating the joy of the husbandman at the return of the harvest.
4, 5. Thy bosom is like, &c. These verses, with a little variation arising from the fact that a different person is the speaker here, contain the same figures as iv. 4, 5. The comparison between the beautiful symmetry, erect bearing, and ivory colour of the neck, and between the elegant structure, lofty altitude, and white colour of a tower, appears more striking and apposite from the description given by Josephus of the towers of Jerusalem: "They were so very tall, they appeared much taller by the place on which they stood; for that very old wall, wherein they were, was built on a high hill, and was itself a kind of elevation that was still thirty cubits taller, over which were the towers situated, and thereby were made much higher to appearance. The largeness also of the stones was wonderful; for they were not made of common small stones, nor of such large ones only as men could carry, but they were of white marble, cut out of the rocks: each stone was twenty cubits in length, and ten cubits in breadth, and five in depth. They were so exactly united
