Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Song of Solomon 2:5
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I [am] sick of love.
5. flagons ] The Heb. ’ashshth means raisin cakes, cp. Hos 3:1, and is connected possibly with Arab. ’assasa, ‘to found’ or ‘establish,’ and so ‘cakes of pressed fruit.’ The LXX translate and the Vulg. floribus, under the impression that the Shulammite calls for restoratives to prevent fainting, just as smelling-salts are used in our day. But that can hardly be the case, as ’ashshth would not be suitable for this purpose, nor apples either, though, as we have seen, the sick desire apples for their smell. Her love and longing have brought her into a state of physical weakness, to bear up against which she needs stimulating and sustaining food. This the raisin cakes and apples would supply. The ‘flagons’ of the A.V. is derived from the Rabbinic commentators, cp. Ibn Ezra on this verse, “ ashshth, vessels of glass full of wine.” But there is no support for it.
sick of love ] i.e. weakened and made faint by hope deferred and disappointed longing. Delitzsch’s idea that she is fainting because of excessive delight is less likely. A country girl would scarcely be liable to an excess of weakness demanding restoratives of this kind from such a cause.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Son 2:5
Comfort me with apples.
An apple
The term apple is a conventional one. By the ancients it was applied indiscriminately to every round fleshy fruit. We require to take into account this extended application of the term, in order to understand the metaphorical allusions to the apple in ancient poetry, classical and oriental. The apple occurs several times in the Bible, but there is abundant reason to believe that it is in almost every case a mistranslation of a word which should have been rendered citron, orange, or quince. The East is not the true home of the apple. It is essentially a Western fruit, the product of the cooler air and moister skies of the north temperate zone. The wild crab-apple, from which all the cultivated varieties have sprung, is a native of most of the countries of Europe; and the development of the fruit has engaged the attention of their inhabitants as far back as we can trace. The tree does not grow wild in the East as it does in our hedges and woodlands, and the ancient Jews were altogether ignorant of apples such as we know them. The apple is appropriately associated by popular tradition with the paradisiacal condition of man, for it belongs to an order of plants that was introduced into the world about the human period. Nature in former epochs had run into rank, luxuriant foliage, but she blossomed and fruited when man came upon the scene. There is a profound relation between the efflorescence of the earth and that of the human soul. The fullest significance of flowers and fruits can only be seen in the life of man, for the illustration of which they furnish innumerable expressive images and analogies. The apple belongs not only to the latest, but also to the highest order of plants. This order is the Rosaceoe, which for beauty of colour, grace of form, perfection of structure, and great and manifold utility, takes precedence of all others. Looking at an apple from a morphological point of view, we find that it is an arrested branch. Instead of going on to develop more wood and foliage, a branch terminates in an apple; and in this apple the sap and substance that would have prolonged the branch are concentrated, and hence its enlarged size and capability of expansion. Looking upon an apple thus as an arrested branch, the branch giving up its own individual life in order that the species may he perpetuated by means of blossom, and fruit, and seed, we behold in it, as in a glass, a very striking natural example of the law of self-sacrifice; that law which pervades all nature, and upon which the welfare and stability of nature depend. And it is a most interesting circumstance, that it is in this self-sacrifice of the plant that all its beauty comes out and culminates. The blossom and fruit in which it gives its own life for another life that is to spring from it are the loveliest of all its parts. God crowns this self-denial and blessing of others with all the glory of colour, and grace of form, and sweetness of perfume, and richness of flavour. The flesh of the apple, it may be remarked, has no purpose to serve in the economy of the plant itself. It is merely an excretion of the plant, produced in large measure by cultivation. And surely this capability of developing flesh which certain fruits possess in relation to the wants of man is one of the most interesting subjects of thought. In this respect man is a fellow-worker with God, in dressing and keeping the great garden of nature so that there shall be trees in it good for food and pleasant to the taste. The nature bound fast in fate has been made fluent by the freedom of the human will; and all the hints and outlines suggested by her roots, and fruits, and flowers are worked out and filled in by man in the exercise of this wondrous Divine gift. Passing strange is it that through this same freedom of will, he should, in the higher moral region, instead of being a fellow-worker with God, be less true to his proper end and destiny than the beasts that perish to their several instincts. Why is an apple round? The circular shape is that in which forces and substances are most perfectly balanced–in which there is the greatest economy of material, and the greatest resistance to external circumstances. It is the most stable of all forms, and therefore, characteristic of bodies in repose. The whole heavens and the whole earth are continually aiming at the spherical form; and they fall to reach or retain it because of their want of repose, insisting upon a shortcoming or departure from the spherical. Thus the apple becomes to us a very significant object, when we see in its round form a striking illustration of the same law that is shaping the earth around us, and the heavens above us, and the heart within us. The skin or rind which hems in the apple, and by limiting completes and individualizes it, is also a most significant feature. It varies in thickness, smoothness, quality of texture, and colour in different varieties of apple; but in all it may be said to pass through the different stages of leaf and flower like the plant that bears it. Wonderful is the ministry of the green skin of plants. It changes inorganic into organic matter, and thus furnishes the starting-point of all life. Nowhere else on the face of the earth does this most important process take place. Everything else consumes and destroys; the green skin of plants alone creates and conserves. It is the mediator between the world of death and the world of life. Hence the significance of the green colour which appears so vividly in all young growing plants. We thus see that the little globe of the apple is a microcosm, representing within its miniature sphere the changes and processes which go on in the great world. Life and death, growth and decay, fight their battle on its humble stage. Fermentation and putrefaction, the two great processes under whose familiarity are hid some of the greatest wonders of the physical world, take place within it. It exhibits the characteristics of the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms; it creates organic matter, and it consumes it; and in its motion within its little orbit, from its formation on the bough in summer to its fall to the ground in autumn, it illustrates the action of the mighty laws which bind the universe together. Our greatest philosopher, by his sublime theory of gravitation, connected it with the stars of heaven; and to avery thoughtful mind it suggests far-reaching ideas which shed light upon the mysteries of ore own world. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. Stay me with flagons] I believe the original words mean some kind of cordials with which we are unacquainted. The versions in general understand some kind of ointment or perfumes by the first term. I suppose the good man was perfectly sincere who took this for his text, and, after having repeated, Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love sat down, perfectly overwhelmed with his own feelings, and was not able to proceed! But while we admit such a person’s sincerity, who can help questioning his judgment?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Stay me; or, support me; keep me from sinking or fainting. The spouse speaks this to her bridemaids, the daughters of Jerusalem, as it is expressed, Son 2:7, or to the servants or friends of the Bridegroom there waiting, and to the Bridegroom himself; as a person ready to faint cries to any or all that are near to him or her for help.
With flagons; with wine, which is a good cordial, Psa 104:15; Pro 31:6,7, and which was there present, Son 2:4. Flagons are here, and 1Ch 16:3, put for flagons of wine, as it is fully expressed, Hos 3:1, or for the wine contained in them, as the cup is put for wine, Luk 22:20, by a common metonymy.
Comfort me with apples; with odoriferous apples, such as pomegranates, or the like, the smell whereof was grateful and useful to persons ready to faint. By these metaphors understand the application of the promises, and the comfortable and quickening influences of the Spirit.
I am sick of love; either,
1. With transports of joy, which sometimes causes a fainting of the spirits, as Gen 45:26; 1Ki 10:5. Or,
2. With grief for his departure from her, of which we read Son 3:1,2, or for fear of it. Or rather,
3. With ardent desire of a stricter union, and clearer discoveries of his love, and perfect and uninterrupted communion with him in glory. That sickness is sometimes the effect of love hath been oft observed by physicians.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. flagonsMAURERprefers translating, “dried raisin cakes”; from the Hebrewroot “fire,” namely, dried by heat. But the “house ofwine” (So 2:4,Margin) favors “flagons”; the “new wine”of the kingdom, the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
applesfrom the tree(So 2:3), so sweet to her, thepromises of God.
sick of lovethehighest degree of sensible enjoyment that can be attained here. Itmay be at an early or late stage of experience. Paul (2Co12:7). In the last sickness of J. Welch, he was overheard saying,”Lord, hold thine hand, it is enough; thy servant is a clayvessel, and can hold no more” [FLEMING,Fulfilling of the Scriptures]. In most cases this intensity ofjoy is reserved for the heavenly banquet. Historically, Israel hadit, when the Lord’s glory filled the tabernacle, and afterwards thetemple, so that the priests could not stand to minister: so in theChristian Church on Pentecost. The bride addresses Christmainly, though in her rapture she uses the plural, “Stay(ye) me,” speaking generally. So far from asking thewithdrawal of the manifestations which had overpowered her, she asksfor more: so “fainteth for” (Ps84:2): also Peter, on the mount of transfiguration (Lu9:33), “Let us make . . . not knowing what he said.“
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Stay me with flagons,…. Of wine, which is a supporter of the animal spirits w. The church was now in a house of wine, where was plenty of it; even of the love of Christ, compared to wine, and preferred unto it, So 1:2; the church though she had had large discoveries of it, desired more; and such that have once tasted of this love are eagerly desirous of it, and cannot be satisfied until they have their fill of it in heaven: the flagons, being vessels in which wine is put, and from thence poured out, may signify the word and ordinances, in which the love of Christ is displayed and manifested; the church desires she might be stayed and supported hereby, while she was attending on Christ in them;
comfort me with apples; with exceeding great and precious promises; which, when fitly spoken and applied, are “like apples of gold in pictures of silver”, Pr 25:11; and are very comforting: or rather, with fresh and greater manifestations of his love still; for the apple is an emblem of love, as before observed; for one to send or throw an apple to another indicated love x. It may be rendered, “strew me with apples” y; in great quantities, about me, before me, and under me, and all around me, that I may lie down among them, and be sweetly refreshed and strengthened: the words, both in this and the former clause, are in the plural number; and so may be an address to the other two divine Persons, along with Christ, to grant further manifestations of love unto her, giving the following reason for it:
for I [am] sick of love; not as loathing it, but as wanting, and eagerly desirous of more of it; being, as the Septuagint version is, “wounded” z with it; love’s dart stuck in her, and she was inflamed therewith: and “languished” a; as the Vulgate Latin version is; with earnest desires after it; nor could she be easy without it, as is the case of lovers.
w “Vino fulcire venas cadentes”, Senecae Ep. 95. x “Malo me Galatea petit”, Virgil. Bucolic. Eclog. 3. v. 64. Vid. Theocrit. Idyll. 3. v. 10. Idyll. 6. v. 6, 7. Suidam in voce
. y “sternite ante me”, so some in Vatablus “substernite mihi”, Tigurine version, Piscator. z , Sept. a “Langueo amore”, V. L. so Michaelis “aegrotus” is used in this sense, in Terent. Heautont. l. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
5 Support me with grape-cakes,
Refresh me with apples:
For I am sick with love.
She makes use of the intensive form as one in a high degree in need of the reanimating of her almost sinking life: is the intens. of , to prop up, support, or, as here, to under-prop, uphold; and ripeed, the intens. of (R. ), to raise up from beneath ( vid., at Pro 7:16), to furnish firm ground and support. The apple is the Greek attribute of Aphrodite, and is the symbol of love; but here it is only a means of refreshing; and if thoughts of love are connected with the apple-tree (Son 2:3; Son 8:5), that is explained from Shulamith’s rural home. Bttcher understands quinces; Epstein, citrons; but these must needs have been more closely denoted, as at Pro 25:11, by some addition to the expression. (from , to establish, make firm) are (cf. Isa 16:7; Hos 3:1) grapes pressed together like cakes; different from , dried grapes (cf. ), fig-cakes (Arab. dabbule , a mass pressed together), and , placenta, from the pressed-out form. A cake is among the gifts (2Sa 6:19) which David distributed to the people on the occasion of the bringing up of the ark; date-cakes, e.g., at the monastery at Sinai, are to the present day gifts for the refreshment of travellers. If Shulamith’s cry was to be understood literally, one might, with Noack, doubt the correctness of the text; for “love-sickness, even in the age of passion and sentimentality, was not to be cured with roses and apples.” But (1) sentimentality, i.e., susceptibility, does not belong merely to the Romantic, but also to Antiquity, especially in the Orient, as e.g., is shown by the symptoms of sympathy with which the prophets were affected when uttering their threatenings of judgment; let one read such outbreaks of sorrow as Isa 21:3, which, if one is disposed to scorn, may be derided as hysterical fits. Moreover, the Indian, Persian, and Arabic erotic ( vid., e.g., the Romance Siret ‘Antar) is as sentimental as the German has at any time been. (2) The subject of the passage here is not the curing of love-sickness, but bodily refreshment: the cry of Shulamith, that she may be made capable of bearing the deep agitation of her physical life, which is the consequence, not of her love-sickness, but of her love-happiness. (3) The cry is not addressed (although this is grammatically possible, since is, according to rule, = ) to the daughters of Jerusalem, who would in that case have been named, but to some other person; and this points to its being taken not in a literal sense. (4) It presupposes that one came to the help of Shulamith, sick and reduced to weakness, with grapes and apple-scent to revive her fainting spirit. The call of Shulamith thus means: hasten to me with that which will revive and refresh me, for I am sick with love. This love-sickness has also been experienced in the spiritual sphere. St. Ephrem was once so overcome by such a joy that he cried out: “Lord, withdraw Thine hand a little, for my heart is too weak to receive so great joy.” And J. R. Hedinger ( 1704) was on his deathbed overpowered with such a stream of heavenly delight that he cried: “Oh, how good is the Lord! Oh, how sweet is Thy love, my Jesus! Oh, what a sweetness! I am not worthy of it, my Lord! Let me alone; let me alone!” As the spiritual joy of love, so may also the spiritual longing of love consume the body (cf. Job 19:27; Psa 63:2; Psa 84:3); there have been men who have actually sunk under a longing desire after the Lord and eternity. It is the state of love-ecstasy in which Shulamith calls for refreshment, because she is afraid of sinking. The contrast between her, the poor and unworthy, and the king, who appears to her as an ideal of beauty and majesty, who raises her up to himself, was such as to threaten her life. Unlooked for, extraordinary fortune, has already killed many. Fear, producing lameness and even death, is a phenomenon common in the Orient.
(Note: “ Rob ( , thus in Damascus), or rab (thus in the Hauran and among the Beduins), is a state of the soul which with us is found only in a lower degree, but which among the Arabians is psychologically noteworthy. The wahm , i.e., the idea of the greatness and irresistibility of a danger or a misfortune, overpowers the Arabian; all power of body and of soul suddenly so departs from him, that he falls down helpless and defenceless. Thus, on the 8th July 1860, in a few hours, about 6000 Christian men were put to death in Damascus, without one lifting his hand in defence, or uttering one word of supplication. That the rob kills in Arabia, European and native physicians have assured me; and I myself can confirm the fact. Since it frequently produces a stiffening of the limbs, with chronic lameness, every kind of paralysis is called rob , and every paralytic marub . It is treated medically by applying the ‘terror-cup’ ( taset er – rob ), covered over with sentences engraved on it, and hung round with twenty bells; and since, among the Arabians, the influence of the psychical on the physical is stronger and more immediate than with us, the sympathetic cure may have there sometimes positive results.” – Wetstein.)
If Pharaoh’s daughter, if the Queen of Sheba, finds herself in the presence of Solomon, the feeling of social equality prevents all alarm. But Shulamith is dazzled by the splendour, and disconcerted; and it happens to her in type as it happened to the seer of Patmos, who, in presence of the ascended Lord, fell at His feet as one dead, Rev 1:17. If beauty is combined with dignity, it has always, for gentle and not perverted natures, something that awakens veneration and tremor; but if the power of love be superadded, then it has, as a consequence, that combination of awe and inward delight, the psychological appearance of which Sappho, in the four strophes which begin with “ ,” has described in a manner so true to nature. We may thus, without carrying back modern sentimentality into antiquity, suppose that Shulamith sank down in a paroxysm caused by the rivalry between the words of love and of praise, and thus thanking him, – for Solomon supports and bears her up, – she exclaims:
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(5) Flagons.Heb., ashishth, apparently a dried cake, but of what substance is uncertain. From the margin of Hos. 3:1, possibly grape cakes. In 2Sa. 6:19 it occurs as one of the gifts distributed by David at the removal of the ark, and is rendered by the LXX., a cake from the frying-pan. Here the LXX. have sweet unguents, and the Vulg. flowers. The Authorised Version, flagons, follows a Rabbinical interpretation.
Comfort.The margin, straw me with apples, follows the LXX.; the Hebrew word occurs in Job. 17:3; Authorised Version, make my bedJob. 41:30 (Heb. 22). Authorised Version, spreadeth. Hence some translate here, make me a bed of apple-leaves; but the parallelism is against this, and the root idea in both the words translated comfort and stay is putting a prop or support under. Metaphorically = refresh or sustain.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Flagons A difficult word, but, probably, a species of cake, apparently of pressed grapes, grapecakes. It can hardly be thought that she calls for these “cakes” and “apples” in a literal sense. Her heart fainteth, and Love’s own cordials only can minister to her relief.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Son 2:5. Stay me with flagons Instead of stay, we might render the word support; and as flagons would be a very improper support on this occasion, and likewise seem to carry with them a very low idea, we should, agreeably to the meaning of the word, as derived from the Arabic, read verdant herbs. The whole passage might be rendered, Support me with verdant herbs, refresh me with citrons, for I am wounded with love. See Michaelis’s notes, p. 157. Parkhurst says, that the original word signifies some confectionary prepared by fire. See 2Sa 6:19. Hos 3:1. Isa 16:8.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.
There is a great degree of earnestness in these expressions, which evidently shows the mind of the church to be going forth, upon the Person of her Lord with much warmth of regard. Whenever we meet with such vehemency of language, it certainly is intended to convey, that faith, and grace, and love, are in most devout exercise. See Psa 63:1-8 . Reader! I fear that we, who live in these cold languishing days of Zion, can hardly have a conception what is meant by these passionate cries of the church. It is to be deeply regretted that we do not: but yet it is possible, and the instance here set forth as fully proves, that, when devout souls get to Christ’s banqueting house, such rich discoveries of his love in the glories of his Person, and such amazing grace displayed in all his redemption-offices, there may be such an overwhelming power of love coming over the soul, as to induce that kind of sickness as requires the arms of Jesus to keep from fainting. If the queen of the south swooned, and had no more spirit in her at the display of Solomon’s wisdom; (1Ki 10:5 .) what may be supposed to take place on the soul of the redeemed, when at anytime Jesus, breaks forth in the blessed manifestations of his grace, and love, and favor! The flaggons and the apple the church requests to be stayed with, are, no doubt, figurative of spiritual comforts; as if she had said, Lord, while thou art thus gracious, oh! give me every suited grace for support that I may go forth in love and praise, while thou art coming forth in such rich displays of goodness and favor.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Son 2:5 Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I [am] sick of love.
Ver. 5. Stay me with flagons. ] Not with cups or bowls only, but with flagons, larger measures of that wine that was set before her in Christ’s wine house. “Comfort me with apples,” such as fall from Christ’s apple tree, spoken of in the former verse, the precious mellifluous promises, which are sweet, like the apples of the garden of Eden, as the Chaldee here hath it. ‘Bolster me up’ with these; for I am even sinking and swooning with an excess of love, with an exuberance of spiritual joy in God my Saviour, such as I can hardly stand under. Stay me therefore, saith she to the ministers, those pillars to “support the weak,” Gal 2:10 and to “comfort the feeble minded.” 1Th 5:14 “Stay me, or sustain me, with flagons, comfort me with apples.” Solinus a tells of some near the river Ganges that live odore pomorum sylvestrium, by the smell b of forest apples, which is somewhat strange.
For I am sick of love.
a Poly. Hist., cap. 56.
b Smelling salts are applied to the nostrils of those who faint.
c Lomb. Sent., lib. iii. distinc. 34. Vide August. Epist., 121, ad Honorat.
d Gosr. in Vita Bern.
e Epist., lib. i.
f Confess, lib. vi. cap. 22.
g Verbis exprimi non potest, experimento opus est. – Chrys.
Stay = Strengthen,
flagons = grape-cakes.
comfort = refresh.
of = with.
Stay: Psa 4:6, Psa 4:7, Psa 42:1, Psa 42:2, Psa 63:1-3, Psa 63:8, Isa 26:8, Isa 26:9, Luk 24:32, Phi 1:23
flagons: 2Sa 6:19, Hos 3:1
comfort me: Heb. straw me
for: Son 5:8, 2Sa 13:1, 2Sa 13:2, Psa 119:130, Psa 119:131
Reciprocal: Psa 84:2 – soul Son 2:3 – his fruit
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge