Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Song of Solomon 4:13
Thy plants [are] an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
13. Thy plants are an orchard ] Better, Thy shoots make an orchard. These shoots denote all the bride’s charms. Orchard is in Heb. pards, which is merely a grander word for gan, and is originally Persian=‘a paradise.’ It is found elsewhere in the O.T. only in Neh 2:8 and Ecc 2:5. It is usually and rightly regarded as a proof of the late origin of this book. Cp. Introduction, 4.
pleasant fruits ] Lit. fruits of excellence, R.V. precious fruits.
camphire ] Properly, henna. See note on ch. Son 1:14.
spikenard ] Cp. ch. Son 1:12. Grtz for nerdhm reads werdhm = roses. Rather than that Budde would strike out the last three words as a repetition. But either suggestion would detract from the poetical character of the passage.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Son 4:13-14
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees Of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.
Fragrance
Of all mans sources of enjoyment, none display more clearly the bountifulness of God than the fragrant odours of nature. Fragrance seems so wholly superfluous and accidental, that we cannot but infer that it was imparted to the objects which possess it, not for their own sakes, but for our gratification. We regard it as a peculiar blessing, sent to us directly from the hand of our Heavenly Father; and we are the more confirmed in this idea by the fact that the human period is the principal epoch of fragrant plants. Geologists inform us that all the eras of the earths history previous to the Upper Miocene were destitute of perfumes. Forests of club-mosses and ferns hid in their sombre bosom no bright-eyed floweret, and shed from their verdant boughs no scented richness on the passing breeze. Palms and cycads, though ushering in the dawn of a brighter floral day, produced no perfume-breathing blossoms. It is only when we come to the periods immediately antecedent to the human that we meet with an odoriferous flora. God placed man in a sweet-scented garden as his home. No sense is more closely connected with the sphere of soul than the sense of smell. Its agency is most subtle and extensive–going down to the very depths of our nature, and back to the earliest dawn of life Memory especially is keenly susceptible to its Influence. The acceptance of mans offerings by God is usually represented in the anthropomorphism of the Bible, as finding its expression in the sense of smell. When Noah offered the first sacrifice after the flood, the Lord, we are told, smelled a sweet savour. The drink-offerings and the various burnt-offerings prescribed by Levitical law were regarded as a sweet savour unto the Lord. Christ, the antitype of these institutions, is spoken of as having given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. And the Apostle Paul, employing the same typical language, speaks of himself and the other apostles as unto God a sweet savour of Christ, etc. The Psalms and the prophetic writings are full of the most beautiful and expressive metaphors, applied to the most solemn persons and things, borrowed from perfumes; while the whole of the Song of Solomon is like aa oriental garden stocked with delicious flowers, as grateful to the sense of smell as to the sense of sight. In the gorgeous ceremonial worship of the Hebrews, none of the senses were excluded from taking part in the service. The eye was appealed to by the rich vestments and the splendid furniture of the holy place; the ear was exercised by the solemn sound of the trumpet, and the voice of praise and prayer; and the nostril was gratified by the clouds of fragrant smoke that rose from the golden altar of incense and filled all the place. Doubtless the Jews felt, when they saw the soft white clouds of fragrant smoke rising slowly from the altar of incense, as if the voice of the priest were silently but eloquently pleading in that expressive emblem in their behalf. The association of sound was lost in that of smell, and the two senses were blended in one. And this symbolical mode of supplication, as Dr. George Wilson has remarked, had this one advantage over spoken or written prayer, that it appealed to those who were both blind and deaf, a class that are usually shut out from social worship by their affliction. Those who could not hear the prayers of the priest could join in devotional exercises symbolized by incense, through the medium of their sense of smell; and the hallowed impressions shut out by one avenue were admitted to the mind and heart by another. But not in the incense of prayer alone were perfumes employed in the Old Testament economy. The oil with which the altars and the sacred furniture of the tabernacle and temple were anointed–with which priests were consecrated for their holy service, and kings set apart for their lofty dignity–was richly perfumed. One of the sweetest names of Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, because He was anointed with the fragrant oil of consecration for His great work of obedience and atonement. As our King and Great High Priest, He received the outward symbolical chrism, when the wise men of the East laid at His feet their gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense in token of His royal authority, and Mary and Nicodemus anointed Him with precious spikenard and costly spices for His priestly work of sacrifice. His name is as ointment poured forth; and He is a bundle of myrrh to the heart that loves Him. The ingredients of the Hebrew perfumes were principally obtained in traffic from the Phoenicians. A few of them were products of native plants, but the great majority of them came from Arabia, India and the spice islands of the Indian Archipelago. So great was the skill required in the mixing of these ingredients, in order to form their most valued perfumes, that the art was a recognized profession among the Jews; and the rokechim, translated apothecary in our version, was not a seller of medicines as with us, but simply a maker of perfumes. Perfumes were at one time extensively employed as remedial agents, particularly in cases of nervous disease. They are still used freely in the sick-room, but more for the purpose of refreshment and overpowering the noxious odours of disease than as medicines. How important they are in the economy of nature we learn from the fact that when the Dutch cut down the spice trees of Ternate, that island was immediately visited with epidemics before unknown; and it has been ascertained that none of the persons employed in the perfume manufactories of London and Paris were attacked by cholera during the last visitation. From the recent experimental researches of Professor Mantegazza, we learn the important fact that the essences of flowers such as lavender, mint, thyme, bergamot, in contact with atmospheric oxygen in sunlight, develop a very large quantity of ozone, the purifying and health-inspiring element in the air. And as a corollary from this fact, he recommends the inhabitants of marshy districts, and of places infected with animal exhalations, to surround their houses with beds of the most odorous flowers, as the powerful oxidizing influence of the ozone may destroy those noxious influences. Many of the most delicious perfumes, however, are dangerous in large quantities. Taken in moderation they act as stimulants, exhilarating the mental functions, and increasing bodily vigour. But in larger and more concentrated doses they act as poisons. If we pursue them as pleasures for their own sake, they will soon pall upon us, however delicious; and if we concentrate them so as to produce a stronger sensation, they become actually repulsive and sickening. God has given them to us to cheer us in the path of duty, not to minister to our love of pleasure and self-indulgence; and in this respect the laws of the unwritten revelation of nature give their sanction to the laws of the written revelation of the Bible, indicating a common source and pointing to a common issue. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates] This seems to refer to the fecundity of the bride or Jewish queen; to the former it would be a prediction; to the latter, a statement of what had already taken place. The word pardes, which we translate an orchard, is the same which has given birth to our paradise, a garden of pleasure. The other expressions, in this and the following verse, seem to refer wholly to matters of a connubial nature.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Thy plants, the plants of thy garden, believers which are planted in thee,
are an orchard; are like the plants or fruits of an orchard, which are pleasant to the eye, and delicious to the taste or smell, such as are here mentioned in the following words; whereby he signifies the variety and excellency of gifts and graces in the several members of the church.
Spikenard; which he mentions both here with camphire or cypress, and in the next verse with saffron, because it is mixed with both these, and being so mixed, yieldeth the more grateful smell.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13. orchardHebrew, “aparadise,” that is, a pleasure-ground and orchard. Not onlyflowers, but fruit trees (Joh 15:8;Phi 1:11).
camphirenot camphor(So 1:14), hennah, orcypress blooms.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thy plants [are] an orchard of pomegranates,…. These plants are the members of the church, true converts, believers in Christ; pleasant plants, plants of renown, planted in the church by Christ’s heavenly Father, and shall never be plucked up; or, thy gardens, as it may be rendered n; particular churches, well taken care of and watered; these make an orchard, or are like one, even a paradise, as the word o signifies: it is generally thought to be a Persic word; see Ne 2:8; but Hillerus p derives it from , to “separate”, it being a garden, separated and enclosed as before; one like Eden’s garden, exceeding pleasant and delightful: and not like an orchard of any sort of trees, but of “pomegranates”, of which there were plenty in Canaan, hence called a “land of pomegranates”, De 8:8; many places in it had their names from thence, Jos 15:32. To which believers in Christ may be compared, for the various sorts of them q, for their largeness, fruitfulness, and uprightness; saints have gifts and grace, differing from one another as to size, but all pomegranates, trees of righteousness; some are larger, and excel others, are full of all the fruits of righteousness; but all are, more or less, fruitful and upright in heart: and so the saints of the higher class may be here designed, as those of a lower are by other trees and spices after mentioned;
with pleasant fruits; that are valuable, precious, and desirable, of which an enumeration follows:
camphire, with spikenard; or “cypresses”, or “cyprusses with nards” r; both in the plural number: the former may intend cypress trees, so called on account of their berries and fruits growing in clusters; see So 1:14; and the latter, because there are different sorts of them, as “nardus Italica”, “Indica”, and “Celtica”: to these saints may be compared, because pleasant and delightful, of a sweet smell, and rare and excellent.
n Vid. Guisium in Misn. Sheviith, c. 2. s. 2. o , Sept. “paradisus”, Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Cocceius, Marckius, Michaelis. p Onomastic. Sacr. p. 291. q Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 13. c. 19. r So Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
13 What sprouts forth for thee is a park of pomegranates,
With most excellent fruits;
Cypress flowers with nards;
14 Nard and crocus; calamus and cinnamon,
With all kinds of incense trees;
Myrrh and aloes,
With all the chief aromatics.
The common subject to all down to Son 4:15 inclusive is (“what sprouts for thee” = “thy plants”), as a figurative designation, borrowed from plants, of all the “phenomena and life utterances” (Bttch.) of her personality. “If I only knew here,” says Rocke, “how to disclose the meaning, certainly all these flowers and fruits, in the figurative language of the Orient, in the flower-language of love, had their beautiful interpretation.” In the old German poetry, also, the phrase bluomen brechen to break flowers was equivalent to: to enjoy love; the flowers and fruits named are figures of all that the amata offers to the amator. Most of the plants here named are exotics; (heaping around, circumvallation, enclosing) is a garden or park, especially with foreign ornamental and fragrant plants – an old Persian word, the explanation of which, after Spiegel, first given in our exposition of the Song, 1851 (from pairi = , and dez , R. diz , a heap), has now become common property (Justi’s Handb. der Zendsprache, p. 180). (from , which corresponds to The Arab. mejd , praise, honour, excellence; vid., Volck under Deu 33:13) are fructus laudum, or lautitiarum, excellent precious fruits, which in the more modern language are simply called ( Shabbath 127 b, , all kinds of fine fruits); cf. Syr. magdo , dried fruit. Regarding , vid., under Son 1:14; regarding , under Son 1:13; also regarding , under Son 1:12. The long vowel of corresponds to the Pers. form nard , but near to which is also nard , Indian nalada (fragrance-giving); the e is thus only the long accent, and can therefore disappear in the plur. For , Grtz reads , roses, because the poet would not have named nard twice. The conjecture is beautiful, but for us, who believe the poem to be Solomonic, is inconsistent with the history of roses ( vid., under Son 2:1), and also unnecessary. The description moves forward by steps rhythmically.
is the crocus stativus, the genuine Indian safran , the dried flower-eyes of which yield the safran used as a colour, as an aromatic, and also as medicine; safran is an Arab. word, and means yellow root and yellow colouring matter. The name , Pers. karkam , Arab. karkum , is radically Indian, Sanscr. kunkuma . , a reed (from , R. qn, to rise up, viewed intrans.),
(Note: In this general sense of “reed” (Syn. arundo ) the word is also found in the Gr. and Lat.: ( ), reed-mats, , a wicker basket, canna , canistrum , without any reference to an Indo-Germ. verbal stem, and without acquiring the specific signification of an aromatic plant.)
viz., sweet reed, acorus calamus, which with us now grows wild in marshes, but is indigenous to the Orient.
is the laurus cinnamomum, a tree indigenous to the east coast of Africa and Ceylon, and found later also on the Antilles. It is of the family of the laurineae, the inner bark of which, peeled off and rolled together, is the cinnamon-bark ( cannella, French cannelle ); Aram. , as also the Greek and , Lat. ( e.g., in the 12th book of Pliny) cinnamomum and cinnamum , are interchanged, from , probably a secondary formation from (like , whence , from ), to which also Syr. qenuma’ , , and the Talm.-Targ. , an oath (cf. ), go back, so that thus the name which was brought to the west by the Phoenicians denoted not the tree, but the reed-like form of the rolled dried bark. As “nards” refer to varieties of the nard, perhaps to the Indian and the Jamanic spoken of by Strabo and others, so “all kinds of incense trees” refers definitely to Indo-Arab. varieties of the incense tree and its fragrant resin; it has its name fro the white and transparent seeds of this its resin (cf. Arab. luban , incense and benzoin, the resin of the storax tree, ); the Greek , (Lat. thus, frankincense, from ), is a word derived from the Pheonicians.
or (which already in a remarkable way was used by Balaam, Num 24:6, elsewhere only since the time of Solomon) is the Semitized old Indian name of the aloe, agaru or aguru ; that which is aromatic is the wood of the aloe-tree ( aloxylon agallochum), particularly its dried root ( agallochum or lignum alos, , according to which the Targ. here: , after the phrase in Aruch) mouldered in the earth, which chiefly came from farther India.
(Note: Vid., Lassen’s Ind. Alterthumsk. I 334f. Furrer, in Schenkel’s Bib. Lex., understands of the liliaceae, indigenous to Palestine as to Arabia, which is also called alo. But the drastic purgative which the succulent leaves of this plant yield is not aromatic, and the verb “to glisten,” whence he seeks to derive the name of this aloe, is not proved. Cf. besides, the Petersburg Lex. under aguru (“not difficult”), according to which is this name of the amyris agallocha, and the aquilaria agallocha, but of no liliaceae. The name Adlerholz (“eagle-wood”) rests on a misunderstanding of the name of the Agila tree. It is called “ Paradiesholz,” because it must have been one of the paradise trees ( vid., Bereshith rabba under Gen 2:8). Dioskorides says of this wood: ; the Song therefore places it along with myrrh and frankincense. That which is common to the lily-aloe and the wood-aloe, is the bitter taste of the juice of the former and of the resinous wood of the latter. The Arab. name of the aloe, sabir , is also given to the lily-aloe. The proverbs: amarru min es – sabir , bitterer than the aloe, and es – sabr sabir , patience is the aloe, refer to the aloe-juice.)
, as everywhere, connects things contained together or in any way united (Son 5:1; cf. Son 1:11, as Psa 87:4; cf. 1Sa 16:12). The concluding phrase , cum praestantissimis quibusque aromatibus , is a poet. et cetera. , with the gen. of the object whose value is estimated, denotes what is of meilleure qualit; or, as the Talm. says, what is , , i.e., number one. Ezek; Eze 27:22, in a similar sense, says, “with chief ( ) of all spices.”
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(13) Thy plants.Some have thought the offspring of the marriage intended here; but the poet is plainly, by a new adaptation of the language of flowers, describing the charms of the person of his beloved.
Orchard.Heb. pardes; LXX. ; found only elsewhere in Neh. 2:8 (where see Note), Ecc. 2:5. The pomegranate was perhaps an emblem of love, having been held sacred to the Syrian Venus. (See Tristram, Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 389.)
Camphire.See Note, Son. 1:14.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. The comparison of his loved one to a garden is more fully given. Not merely enclosed, but worth enclosing!
Thy plants That is, the growths within the garden.
Orchard Hebrew, paradise. This word, whether taken from the Hebrew or the Sanscrit, means “enclosure.” The Hindustanee and Persian of to-day have a like term, “Peridesh,” fairy land. Camphire, etc. Fragrant with perfume.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Son 4:13. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates Thy predications are a paradise of pomegranates, with delicious fruits, cypress, and spikenard. The bridegroom, having in a former sentence called the bride an inclosed garden, here carries on the metaphor, and compares her virtues and accomplishments to all the choicest productions of an Eastern orchard, or of a paradise. Delicious fruits, is in the Hebrew, literally, Fruits of sweetness. See Le Clerc, and the New Translation.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, (14) Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
Jesus is not tired of the subject, for in both these verses he prosecutes the same theme, and here talks of the fruitfulness of his people. Under various similitudes he sets this forth. The several graces of the Spirit – their choice and divine qualities; with the blessed consequences, as they are brought forth to the joy of the church at large, and the delight of every individual of the church, are figuratively represented by the characters here chosen.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Son 4:13 Thy plants [are] an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
Ver. 13. Thy plants are as an orchard of pomegranates. ] By plants are to be understood either particular churches or several saints. These are those shoots or sprouts a that spread abroad God’s paradise – that the word here used, and nowhere else in Scripture, save Ecc 2:5 Neh 2:8 so called for the curious variety and excellence of all sorts of precious and pleasant trees there growing; some for profit, as pomegranates, which are known to be healthful and preservative, some for pleasure; and these again were either more common and copious in Jewry, as camphires and spikenards – plurals both in the original, for the plenty of them in those parts – or more rare and costly, as those mentioned in the next verse.
a Emissiones, propagines.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
an orchard = a paradise. See note on Ecc 2:5.
camphire = henna, or cypress.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
are: Son 6:11, Son 7:12, Son 8:2, Psa 92:14, Ecc 2:5, Isa 60:21, Isa 61:11, Joh 15:1-3, Phi 1:11
pleasant: Son 6:2
camphire: or, cypress, Son 4:14, Son 1:14
spikenard: Son 1:12, Mar 14:3, Joh 12:3
Reciprocal: Gen 24:53 – precious Exo 28:34 – General Exo 39:25 – the pomegranates Exo 39:26 – pomegranate 2Ch 4:13 – four hundred Psa 45:8 – All Pro 7:17 – with Son 4:16 – the spices Son 5:1 – I have gathered Son 5:5 – my hands Eze 27:19 – cassia Joe 1:12 – the pomegranate Joe 2:8 – sword Rev 18:13 – cinnamon
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Son 4:13-14. Thy plants are an orchard Believers, which are planted in thee, are like the plants or fruits of an orchard, which are pleasant to the eye, and delicious to the taste or smell, whereby he signifies the variety and excellence of the gifts and graces in the several members of the church. Spike-nard Which he mentions here with camphire, and in the next verse with saffron, because it is mixed with both these, and, being so mixed, yields the more grateful smell. All trees of frankincense Such trees as produce frankincense.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Son 4:13 to Son 5:1.The Bride as a Garden.The charms of the bride are now described under the figure of the fruits of the garden.
Son 4:16 gives the gracious invitation of the bride to the lover, who in such enthusiastic terms has praised her beauty.
Son 5:1 declares his ready acceptance and his call to friends to enjoy similar delights,
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
She was like a garden full of beautiful and pleasing plants that was now open to Solomon. [Note: See the subject study on "garden" as used in the Song of Solomon in Carr, The Song . . ., pp. 55-60] These spices, fruits, and flowers probably represent her whole person rather than her individual parts.
"The most obvious feature of the Song of Songs is the sexually explicit nature of the material, sensitively guised in figurative language." [Note: Tanner, "The Message . . .," p. 145. Cf. Exum, Song of . . ., p. 176.]