His Desire Is for Me
10 I am my beloved’s. His desire is toward me. 11 Come, my beloved! Let’s go out into the field. Let’s lodge in the villages. 12 Let’s go early up to the vineyards. Let’s see whether the vine has budded, its blossom is open, and the pomegranates are in flower. There I will give you my love. 13 The mandrakes produce fragrance. At our doors are all kinds of precious fruits, new and old, which I have stored up for you, my beloved.
The third belonging formula replaces possession with desire, and the word it chooses appears exactly twice more in Scripture — both times in the fall's shadow.
The progression completes. First, my beloved is mine, and I am his Song of Solomon 2:16. Then the order reversed Song of Solomon 6:3. Now the third form: I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me — and the possession clause on his side is gone entirely. In its place stands teshuqah H8669, desire.
The distribution of that word is exact and was verified rather than assumed: it occurs three times in the Hebrew Bible and nowhere else. In Eden's sentence — your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you Genesis 3:16. To Cain — sin's desire is for you, and you must rule over it Genesis 4:7. Both times, desire is met by rule.
Here is the third, and the grammar of the curse returns with its terms transposed: his desire is for her, her belonging freely given — and rule appears nowhere in the verse. Whether the Song is quoting Genesis the text does not say, and the claim does not need it: the word's whole distribution is these three scenes, and the third reverses the pattern of the first two. Where the fall bound desire to dominion, the Song's lovers meet with desire and no dominion at all.
On the strength of it she issues the invitation that was once issued to her Song of Solomon 2:10–13: come, my beloved — the field, the villages, the vineyards at dawn, the blossoms checked together. The roles rotate to the very end. And at their doors, fruits new and old, which I have stored up for you — love in this book lays things by; it keeps a pantry.
settled What this mark means