My Vineyard Is My Own
11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He leased out the vineyard to keepers. Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit. 12 My own vineyard is before me. The thousand are for you, Solomon, two hundred for those who tend its fruit. 13 You who dwell in the gardens, with friends in attendance, let me hear your voice! 14 Come away, my beloved! Be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices!
Solomon's leased vineyard is set beside the one vineyard that cannot be rented, and the book ends with the lovers still calling each other onward.
Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon — a place whose name means something like lord of a multitude, and the arrangement matches it: leased to keepers, a thousand silver pieces each for its fruit. Wealth by delegation, love of increase managed by contract. The verse states it without complaint; it is simply how kings hold vineyards.
Her answer is the book's last argument: my vineyard, my very own, is before me. The thousand is yours, Solomon. The vineyard is herself — the book opened with her forced to keep others' vines while her own went untended Song of Solomon 1:6, and it closes with that vineyard wholly hers and freely given, not for hire. Keep the money; what matters here was never on the market. It is the previous scene's verdict enacted Song of Solomon 8:7: all the wealth of a house, waved away with a king's own rent.
Then the last exchange. He asks — as he asked at the clefts of the rock Song of Solomon 2:14 — for her voice: companions are listening, let me hear it. And the final verse of the book is that voice, telling him to run: come away, my beloved, and be like a gazelle on the mountains of spices.
The Song ends on an imperative of motion. Not an arrival, not a settling — an invitation still in the air, desire still running and still welcome. The book closes the way it opened Song of Solomon 1:2: her voice, wanting — and after everything between, wanting the same one.
settled What this mark means