Song of Solomon 6 (YLT)

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Chapter Text

6:1 Whither hath thy beloved gone, O fair among women? Whither hath thy beloved turned, And we seek him with thee?

6:2 My beloved went down to his garden, To the beds of the spice, To delight himself in the gardens, and to gather lilies.

6:3 I <FI>am<Fi> my beloved's, and my beloved <FI>is<Fi> mine, Who is delighting himself among the lilies.

6:4 Fair <FI>art<Fi> thou, my friend, as Tirzah, Comely as Jerusalem, Awe-inspiring as bannered hosts.

6:5 Turn round thine eyes from before me, Because they have made me proud. Thy hair <FI>is<Fi> as a row of the goats, That have shone from Gilead,

6:6 Thy teeth as a row of the lambs, That have come up from the washing, Because all of them are forming twins, And a bereaved one is not among them.

6:7 As the work of the pomegranate <FI>is<Fi> thy temple behind thy veil.

6:8 Sixty are queens, and eighty concubines, And virgins without number.

6:9 One is my dove, my perfect one, One she <FI>is<Fi> of her mother, The choice one she <FI>is<Fi> of her that bare her, Daughters saw, and pronounce her happy, Queens and concubines, and they praise her.

6:10 `Who <FI>is<Fi> this that is looking forth as morning, Fair as the moon--clear as the sun, Awe-inspiring as bannered hosts?'

6:11 Unto a garden of nuts I went down, To look on the buds of the valley, To see whither the vine had flourished, The pomegranates had blossomed--

6:12 I knew not my soul, It made me--chariots of my people Nadib.

6:13 Return, return, O Shulammith! Return, return, and we look upon thee. What do ye see in Shulammith?

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "light", "whither", "hath", "beloved", "gone", "fair", and "women". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "light" and "whither", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The local YLT text gives this verse as the immediate unit, so "light" and "whither" carries the first interpretive weight. 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 "light" and "whither" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.