Song of Solomon 4:12 (WEB)

Passage

A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.

Nearby Context

Song of Solomon 4:10 How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine! The fragrance of your perfumes than all kinds of spices!

Song of Solomon 4:11 Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

Song of Solomon 4:12 A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.

Song of Solomon 4:13 Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits: henna with spikenard plants,

Song of Solomon 4:14 spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree; myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices,

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "locked", "garden", "sister", "bride", "spring", "sealed", and "fountain". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "locked" and "garden", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 11's "Your lips my bride drip like the..." into verse 13's "Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates...", so "locked" and "garden" belong inside that flow. In Song of Solomon context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "locked" and "garden" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.