3
1 In the nights on my bed
I sought him whom my nefesh loveth;
I sought him, but I found him not.
2 So I will rise then, and go about the city
in the streets, and in the rechovot (open squares, places);
I will seek him whom my nefesh loveth;
I sought him, but found him not.
3 The shomrim (watchmen) that go about the city found me;
to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my nefesh loveth?
4 Scarcely had I passed from them,
when I found him whom my nefesh loveth;
I held him, and would not let him go,
until I had brought him into the bais immi (the house of my mother),
and into the cheder of her that conceived me.
5 I charge you, O ye banot Yerushalayim,
by the gazelles, and by the deer of the sadeh,
that ye arouse nor awake HaAhavah
till it pleases.*
6 Who is this that cometh out of the midbar
like pillars of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and frankincense
from all the fragrant powders of the rokhel (merchant)?
7 Hinei, his conveyance,† which is Sh'lomoʼs;
threescore gibborim (valiant men) are around it,
the Gibborei Yisroel.
8 They all hold swords,
being expert in milchamah (war);
every man hath his cherev (sword) at his side
against the pachad (terror, dread) of the nights.
9 HaMelech Sh'lomo made himself an appiryon (palanquin),‡
of the wood of the Levanon.
10 He made the pillars thereof of kesef,
the support thereof of zahav,
the cushion of it of purple,
the interior thereof being inlaid with Ahavah,
by the banot Yerushalayim.
11 Come out, O ye banot Tziyon,
and behold Sh'lomo HaMelech
with the atarah (crown) wherewith his em crowned him
in the Yom Chasunoh (day of his wedding),
and in the Yom Simchat Libo (day of the gladness of his heart).§
* 3:5 i.e., until its own time, see 2:7; 8:4 † 3:7 See palanquin, 3:9 ‡ 3:9 mobile throne carried on a litter on the shoulders of men § 3:11 See Rv 19:6-10; Ep 5:22-33; Yn 3:29; 2C 11:1-2; Isa 54:5-6; Jer 2:2; Ezek 16:8-14,20-21,32,38; Hos 2:16,18-20, and here see the Shulamite as a type of the Kehillah of Moshiach and Sh'lomo Ben Dovid a type of Moshiach Ben Dovid the Ro'eh HaTov, the Good Shepherd