Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Song of Solomon · About this commentary
Return, O Shulammite
Song of Solomon 6:11-13
11 I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower. · WEB
The book's most obscure verse sits here, and the woman's one title appears — a feminine echo of the king's own name.
She goes down to the nut orchard to check the valley's growth — had the vine budded, were the pomegranates in flower? The Song's lovers keep inspecting the spring Song of Solomon 2:11–13 Song of Solomon 7:12. Their love keeps time by the farm year. Its milestones are blossoms.
Verse 12 is the most obscure sentence in the book. The English translations cannot be reconciled: a desire setting her among royal chariots, a soul making her like the chariots of a man named Amminadib, chariots of a princely people. No reading commands confidence, and the sentence keeps its secret. The little that is sure is still worth saying.
Then the calling voices — return, return, that we may gaze at you — and with them her one title in all of Scripture: the Shulammite H7759. The form is feminine. Its consonants answer to Solomon's own name: as Shelomoh is built on shalom, peace, so is Shulammit. Some hear a hometown in it. Whatever its derivation, the book lands her story on the word itself, when she stands at the end as one who finds peace Song of Solomon 8:10. The peace-king and the peace-woman, named from the same root.
The watchers want a spectacle — why gaze at her as at the dance of Mahanaim, the two-camps place of Jacob's naming Genesis 32:2? The next poem answers by taking the gazing away from them. The praise that follows is his alone.
held with reason What this mark means