Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Song of Solomon 5:12
His eyes [are] as [the eyes] of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, [and] fitly set.
12. His eyes, &c.] R.V. His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks. Here the idea is different from that in Son 1:15 and Son 4:1. It is not the innocent dove-like look of the eye that is referred to. The eyes themselves, or at least the pupils of the eyes, are compared to doves. Ginsburg’s quotation from the Gitagovinda is almost an exact parallel: “The glances of her eyes played like a pair of water birds of azure plumage, that sport near a full blown lotus in a pool in the season of dew.”
washed with milk ] Rather, bathing in milk. This may refer to the eyes; the pupils move in the white of the eye as if bathing in milk. Or it may refer to the doves, in which case it would be an extension or correction of the previous part of the simile; ‘the eyes are like doves by brooks of water or rather streams of milk.’ The choice between these alternatives depends upon the reference of the next clause fitly set. If it refers to the eyes, then this would best be understood of the eyes also. But if that be understood of the doves, as probably it should be, then to avoid the awkwardness of connecting the two participles with different subjects, this clause should be understood of the doves also.
fitly set ] The A.V. in margin gives this note, “Heb. sitting in fulness, that is, fitly placed, and set as a precious stone in the foil of a ring.” This is the traditional Jewish interpretation. Others explain full as opposed to sunken (Oettli). Possibly, as LXX suggest, the text is faulty and we should read ysh bh th al m lo’ hammay m, and translate, sitting upon full streams, when the subject would, of course, be the doves. This latter reading and the rendering it suggests are simpler and more natural than any of the other varied conjectures that have been made.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Or, His eyes are doves. The comparison is to doves seen by streams of water washing in milk (i. e., milk-white), and sitting on fulness (i. e., on the full or abundant water-flood).
Fitly set – This rendering supposes that the eyes within their sockets are compared to precious stones set in the foil of a ring (see the margin); but the other rendering is preferable. The milk-white doves themselves, sitting by full streams of water, or reflected in their flittings athwart the glassy surface, present images of the calm repose and vivid glances of the full pure lustrous eyes of the beloved.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 12. His eyes are as the eyes of doves] See on So 4:1.
Washed with milk] The white of the eye, exceedingly white. By the use of stibium, in the East, the eye is rendered very beautiful; and receives such a lustre from the use of this article, that, to borrow the expression of a late traveller, “their eyes appear to be swimming in bliss.” I believe this expression to be the meaning of the text.
Fitly set.] Or, as the margin, very properly, sitting in fullness; not sunk, not contracted.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
His eyes are as the eyes of doves, lovely and pleasant, chaste and innocent.
By the rivers of waters; where they delight to abide, and wherewith they bathe themselves, and wash their eyes; where also their eyes are most lively and beautiful, both by the reflection of the waters, and from that pleasure which they take in such places.
Washed with milk; which may belong either,
1. To the eyes, which are supposed to be washed with water, as white and pure as milk; or,
2. To the doves, which are intimated to be of a milk-white colour, which in those parts was most esteemed, which colour also made the eyes appear more lovely.
Fitly set; neither sinking into the head, nor standing out too much, but in a moderate and comely situation. Heb. sitting in fulness; which may note a full and competently large eye, which is esteemed one beauty of the eye.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. as the eyes of dovesrather,”as doves” (Ps 68:13);bathing in “the rivers”; so combining in their “silver”feathers the whiteness of milk with the sparklingbrightness of the water trickling over them (Mt3:16). The “milk” may allude to the white around thepupil of the eye. The “waters” refer to the eye as thefountain of tears of sympathy (Eze 16:5;Eze 16:6; Luk 19:41).Vivacity, purity, and love, are the three features typified.
fitly setas a gem in aring; as the precious stones in the high priest’s breastplate.Rather, translate as Vulgate (the doves), sitting at thefulness of the stream; by the full stream; or, as MAURER(the eyes) set in fulness, not sunk in their sockets (Re5:6), (“seven,” expressing full perfection),(Zec 3:9; Zec 4:10).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
His eyes [are] as [the eyes] of doves,…. the church’s eyes are said to be, So 1:15; which are her ministers, endowed with dove like gifts in measure, as Christ is without measure, in fulness; but these are Christ’s eyes, which may signify his omniscience, who has seven eyes, Zec 3:9; especially as that has respect unto and is concerned with his people in a way of grace and mercy, and so must look very beautiful in their view: his eyes are like “doves’ eyes”; not fierce and furious, but loving and lovely; looking upon his people, under all their trials and afflictions, with sympathy and concern, to deliver them out of them: and like the eyes of doves
by rivers of waters: Sanctius thinks the allusion is to the humours in which the eye is enclosed, and, as it were, swims in; hence the eyes are called “natantia lumina”, by Virgil h; but it denotes eyes like those of doves, quick and lively, as clean as milk white doves, as if they had been “washed in milk”; clear and perspicuous, sharp sighted, and behold all persons and things, in all places, and at once; and as doves look only to their mates, so Christ’s eyes of love are only on his church; he looks to none but her with his eye of special and peculiar love. Moreover, his eyes are like the eyes of doves “by the rivers of waters”; which denotes the fixedness and constancy of them: doves, by the river side, keep their eyes fixed on the purling streams, and in drinking, as Pliny i observes, do not erect their necks, and lift up their heads, but, keeping their eyes upon the water, drink a large draught, in the manner the beasts do; and they delight in clean water, of which they drink, and with which they wash k: Christ, being greatly delighted with his people, has fixed his eyes on them, and he never withdraws them from them; for these waters may point at the object of Christ’s love, even Gospel churches, consisting of such as are justified and sanctified by his grace, compared to “clean water”; among whom the doctrines of the Gospel are powerfully preached, the ordinances purely administered, the waters of the sanctuary flow, by which souls are delighted and refreshed; and to these Christ looks,
Isa 66:2; and his eyes being like doves’ eyes,
washed with milk, may denote the purity of them, being purer eyes than to behold iniquity; and the meekness and mildness of them, not red and wrathful, but full of mercy, pity, and compassion, as if they had been washed with milk. And they are said to be,
fitly set; or “sitting in fulness” l; such as exactly fill up their holes; are set neither too, high nor too low; neither sunk in too much, nor stand out too far; but are like precious stones, in an enclosure of gold or silver, to which the allusion is; as diamonds set in a ring; or as the precious stones in the high priest’s breast plate, which exactly filled the cavities made for them, and hence are called “stones of fulness”, Ex 25:7; or, “set by fulness” m; that is, by full channels of water, where doves delight to be; and may denote the fulness of grace, and the flows of it, by which Christ sits and dwells, and leads his people to, Re 7:17; or, “setting upon fulness” n; on the world, and the fulness of it, which is his, and he gives as much of it to his people as he think fit; and on the vast numbers of persons and things in it, and the vast variety of actions done therein; which shows the extensiveness of his omniscience: and on the “fulness” of time, fixed by him and his Father, for his coming into the world, to do the great work of redemption in it; and which, before it came, he was looking, waiting, and watching, and as it were longing till it came: and on his “fulness”, the church, which is the fulness of him that filleth all in all, until he has gathered them all in, and filled them with all the gifts and graces of the Spirit, designed for them: and on the “fulness” of the Gentiles, until they are all brought in: and on his own “fulness”; both personal, “the fulness of the Godhead”, which he had his eyes upon, when he undertook the work of redemption, and which supported him in it, and carried him through it; and upon his dispensatory “fulness”, or fulness of grace, as Mediator, to supply the wants of his people, under all their straits and difficulties, temptations and afflictions: all which must make him exceeding lovely in the eyes of his people.
h Aeneid. l. 5. So Ovid. Fast. l. 6. “animique oculique natabant”. i Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 34. k Varro de Rustic. c. 3. s. 7. l “siti insitione”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator. m “Ad plenitudinem”, Tigurine version, Bochart “juxta plenitudinem”, Vatablus; so some in Brightman; “juxta fluenta plenissima” V. L. Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions. n “Super plenitudinem”, Montanus, Mercerus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
12 His eyes like doves by the water-brooks,
Bathing in milk, stones beautifully set
The eyes in their glancing moistness (cf. , in Plutarch, of a languishing look), and in the movement of their pupils, are like doves which sip at the water-brooks, and move to and fro beside them. , from , continere , is a watercourse, and then also the water itself flowing in it ( vid., under Psa 18:16), as (Arab.) wadin , a valley, and then the river flowing in the valley, bahr , the sea-basin (properly the cleft), and then also the sea itself. The pred. “bathing” refers to the eyes (cf. Son 4:9), not to the doves, if this figure is continued. The pupils of the eyes, thus compared with doves, seem as if bathing in milk, in that they swim, as it were, in the white in the eye. But it is a question whether the figure of the doves is continued also in . It would be the case of milleth meant “fulness of water,” as it is understood, after the example of the lxx, also by Aquila ( ). Jerome ( fluenta plenissima ), and the Arab. ( piscinas aqua refertas ); among the moderns, by Dpke, Gesen., Hengst., and others. But this pred. would then bring nothing new to Son 5:12; and although in the Syr. derivatives from mela’ signify flood and high waters, yet the form milleth does not seem, especially without , to be capable of bearing this signification. Luther’s translation also, although in substance correct: und stehen in der flle (and stand in fulness) ( milleth , like of the Syr., of the Gr. Venet., still defended by Hitz.), yet does not bring out the full force of milleth , which, after the analogy of , , appears to have a concrete signification which is seen from a comparison of Exo 25:7; Exo 27:17, Exo 27:20; Exo 39:13. There and signify not the border with precious stones, but, as rightly maintained by Keil, against Knobel, their filling in, i.e., their bordering, setting. Accordingly, milleth will be a synon. technical expression: the description, passing from the figure of the dove, says further of the eyes, that they are firm on (in) their setting; is suitable, for the precious stone is laid within the casket in which it is contained. Hitzig has, on the contrary, objected that and denote filling up, and thus that milleth cannot be a filling up, and still less the place thereof. But as in the Talm. signifies not only fulness, but also stuffed fowls or pies, and as in its manifold aspects is used not only of that with which anything is filled, but also of that which is filled ( e.g., of a ship that is manned, and Eph 1:23 of the church in which Christ, as in His body, is immanent), – thus also milleth , like the German “ Fassung ,” may be used of a ring-casket ( funda or pala ) in which the precious stone is put. That the eyes are like a precious stone in its casket, does not merely signify that they fill the sockets, – for the bulbus of the eye in every one fills the orbita, – but that they are not sunk like the eyes of one who is sick, which fall back on their supporting edges in the orbita, and that they appear full and large as they press forward from wide and open eyelids. The cheeks are next described.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(12) Fitly set.Literally, sitting in fulness, which the Margin explains, according to one received method of interpretation, as beautifully set, like a precious stone in the foil of a ring. If the comparison were to the eyes of the dove, this would be a sufficient interpretation, the image being perfect, owing to the ring of bright red skin round the eye of the turtle-dove. But there is no necessity to have recourse to the figure comparatio compendiana here, since doves delight in bathing; and though there is a certain delicious haze of indistinctness in the image, the soft iridescence of the bird floating and glancing on the face of the stream might not too extravagantly suggest the quick loving glances of the eye. Keats has a somewhat similar figure:
To see such lovely eyes in swimming search
After some warm delight, that seems to perch
Dove-like in the dim cell lying beyond
Their upper lids;
and Dr. Ginsburg aptly quotes from the Gitagovinda: The glances of her eyes played like a pair of water-birds of azure plumage, that sport near a full-grown lotus in a pool in the season of dew. The words washed in milk refer to the white of the eye, which swells round the pupil like the fulness of water, i.e., the swelling wave round the dove. The parallelism is like that of Son. 1:5.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
12. His eyes, etc. Hebrew, His eyes are doves, etc. Doves are fond of bathing and dressing their plumage, and the blue creatures tricking their feathers by a full and sparkling summer stream form a lively and agreeable picture. But the eyes seem to bathe in milk.
Fitly set Rather, Framed in fulness, that is, with ample development, full-orbed, and gushing copious light.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Son 5:12. And fitly set Sitting at the full streams. The literal meaning is, “His eyes are sparkling and yet mild, like those of milk-white doves, when they are delighted as they sit by the water-side.” See Patrick, Bochart, &c.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set.
The Church now describes the eyes of her, beloved. Blessed it is to know that Jesus’s eye is upon all his people, and with the love and meekness of the dove. Perhaps the influences of his Holy Spirit may be here intended by the allusion. And as the Holy Ghost is frequently set forth under the similitude of rivers and waters; so his gifts are said to be as by the rivers. Sweet thought here again suggested! Jesus never loseth sight of his people; and he will be to them as a well of living water, and streams from Lebanon.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Son 5:12 His eyes [are] as [the eyes] of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, [and] fitly set.
Ver. 12. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of water, &c., ] i.e., they are full of all innocence, singleness, and chastity; See Trapp on “ Son 1:15 “ See Trapp on “ Son 4:1 “ where Christ had attributed the very same to the Church, who is his image and glory, as the woman is of the man, 1Co 11:7 the very looking glass of his dignity and reflex of his comeliness. His eyes are elsewhere said to be as a “flame of fire,” Rev 1:14 Dan 10:6 sharp and terrible, such as pierce into the inward parts, and need no outward light. Here they are as the “eyes of doves,” casting an amiable, gracious, joyful, and comfortable look upon his Church. As his “eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men” Psa 11:4 – the one points out his knowledge, the other his critical descant – so he casteth an eye of singular providence and tender affection upon his afflicted people. “I have seen, I have seen,” saith he, “the sufferings of my people; I know their sorrows, and am come down to deliver them.” Exo 3:7-8 His “eye affects his heart,” and his heart sets his hand to work for their help and safety. In Eze 1:8 , we read of faces, eyes, wings, hands, &c., all to express the sufficiency of God’s providence for all means of help; see Psa 33:18-19 ; Psa 34:16 . The Church is like the land of Canaan, which is said to be “a hind which the Lord careth for: the eyes of the Lord are always upon it.” Deu 11:11 He seeth that loveliness in her that he overlooks all, as it were, to look upon her; he beholds that worth in her that the buzzards of the world cannot ken. Therefore the “world knows us not,” respects us not, “because it knew not him,” 1Jn 3:1 saw “no such beauty that they should desire him.” Isa 53:2 Nicostratus in Aelian, himself being a cunning artisan, finding a curious piece of work, and being wondered at by one, and asked by one what pleasure he could take to stand gazing as he did on the picture, answered, Hadst thou mine eyes, thou wouldst not wonder, but rather be ravished, as I am, at the inimitable art of this piece. Similarily, had men those dove like single eyes that Christ and his people have, “washed in milk,” that is, in milk white waters, cleansed from the dust of sinful prejudice, and “fitly set,” as a precious stone in the foil of a ring, or as the precious filling stones in the holy ephod, Exo 25:7 they would “kiss the Son” and admire his spouse; whereas, for want of spiritual eyes, the northern proverb is verified, “unkent, unkist,” unknown, unrespected.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
rivers = channels, or gorges. Hebrew. ‘aphikim. See note on 2Sa 22:16.
washed = bathed: i.e. the doves.
fitly set = set as gems in a ring.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
fitly set Heb. “sitting in fulness;” i.e. fitly placed, and set as a precious stone in the foil of a ring.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
His eyes: Rather, “His eyes are as doves;” the deep blue pigeon, the common dove in the East, whose brilliant plumage vibrates around his neck every sparkling hue, every dazzling flash of colour. And this pigeon standing amid “the torrents of water,” or the foam of a waterfall, would be a blue centre with a bright space like the iris of the eye, surrounded by the white. Son 1:15, Son 4:1, Heb 4:13
fitly set: Heb. sitting in fulness, that is, fitly placed, and set as a precious stone in the foil of a ring.