'speaking','' rising up early and sending. I say, the Beloved's own mouth, as it is confessed that he was the speaker, the dabar, the logos, of these old times; and the sender too, as the connexion of his pathetic expostulation in the 23d chapter of St Matthew does plainly indicate-there will I give thee my loves, the offerings of my grateful heart. 3 VER. 13. The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my Beloved. What these dudaim really are (which here and in Genesis, the only places where the word is found, our translators have rendered mandrakes), is not agreed upon by commentators, and perhaps never will. From the use made of them in Genesis, which I am inclined to believe had an emblematical view, otherwise I cannot think that such an apparently trifling circumstance would have been so minutely recorded; and, from the spouse's mentioning of them here, in reference no doubt to the value that the two old mothers of the holy seed put upon them, it would seem the word, whatever it means, has a near relation to love, as its formation evidently bears, and, by what we read of it, to connubial love in particular, of which the happy soul that feels with the spouse here may have a proper Jerem. vii. 13. 3 Ver. 37. 2 Chap. vii. 25. xxvi. 5, &c. 4 Gen. xxx. proper and pleasant idea, but which I am confident no language but the Hebrew has proper words to express. At our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old. The margin of some of our large Bibles presents us with a New-Testament key to this', Every instructed scribe- is like a householder 'who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new ' and old. Fruits is an addition, not being in the text. The word is, magdim, delicia, 'precious things,' much used by Moses in his blessing of Joseph, and twice before in this Song 3, pleasant fruits, where the word for fruits, pri, is added, which are all the places where the simple root magd occurs. At our gates,, umns by, oι pathahinu, επι θυραις ημων, LXX. super ostiis nostris, Montanus and Calasio, ' above our doors,' not a very likely place, one should think, for laying up or hiding, (as the word tzephnthi * radically signifies) pleasant fruits. The word pathahi primarily signifies openings,' and is often joined with shor, the usual word for gate 3; as in that lofty Psalm, Lift up your heads, ye, shorim, gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors?, What I St Matth. xiii. 52. 3 Chap. iv. 13. 16. 2 Deut. xxxiii. 13-16. 4 See above, chap. iv. 16. 5 As Jerem. i. 15, xxvi. 10. xxxvi. 10. the entry,' marg.' door of 7 Pathabi oulm, Heb. uhai aavias, LXX. portæ eternales,' Jerom, fores seculi,' Calasio. What are these everlasting doors? Like Moses's and Habakkuk's everlasting mountains", they will not admit the common meaning put upon αιων, everlasting,' neither does that Hebrew word, ➡y, oulm, require it. Its current signification is 'age,' corresponding with the Greek awy, and Latin seculum, and when not otherwise restricted, is thought, even by the Rabbins themselves, to denote the days of Messiah.' This throws light upon the Psalmist's 'everlasting doors;' and it would be no great stretch to apply them in that light to the pathahinu of our Song; in which, though they are here considered as properly belonging to the Beloved, the church, by virtue of her dignifying union, is privileged to claim a community. This interpretation, if admitted, is consonant to the Baptist's preparatory' warning, The kingdom of heaven is at hand,' the pathahi oulm, the age' of Messiah, is opening. Bring forth, therefore, (your magdim, delicacies), fruits meet for repen• tance, agious, worthy of the Beloved's acceptance.' CHAP. 1 Deut. xxxiii. 15. Hab. iii. 6. 2'' As in the bed,' chap. i. 16.' and house,' v. 17. 4 Ver. 8. CHAP. VIII. VER. 1.-O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother; when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. I HAVE already observed of the structure of this admirable Poem, that it is to no purpose to seek for strict connexion of parts in it, and would be doing it injustice to try it by the arbitrary rules of modern criticism. The verse now before us is a proof of this. To what time or circumstances it may be adjusted, we need not enquire. It is the rapturous effusion of a feeling heart, overflowing with gratitude, and, in her own emphatic language, sick of love. An ardent wish is expressed in the strong stile of the Hebrew idiom-Mi itḥn, Who will give me?' A wish, too, I may say, she has lived to see accomplished, according to the apostle's argumentation in his Epistle to the Hebrews'. Yet in the nature of this wish, plain and fervent Chap. . 11, 12. 17: 6 fervent as it is, there is something not easy to be accounted for, when we reflect that the Beloved himself had before this vested her with the title of sister no less than four times, and had thereby declared himself her brother. I will not have recourse here to what the late paraphraser calls' the little 'inconsistencies of the bride's speech,' as I have hitherto met with nothing of that kind; and therefore believe that her meaning here is quite reconcileable to what she had heard before from her Beloved's mouth, and well suited to her consequent resolution, which our version reads in what grammarians call the optative mood, but the Hebrew, in the simple future, without our additional word when,' I will find thee without, I will kiss thee, and shall not be despised. She had before lamented, that when she sought her Beloved, she found him not; now she has no such fears, nor feels any anxiety on that score; but, in a well-grounded confidence of finding him whenever she sought him, declares herself ready to avow her love by every becoming expression. The Beloved had complained, by his type David', that they who saw him, behutz, without, conveyed themselves from him;' similar to the charge against the lefthand company in St Matthew 3. The spouse here speaks and acts in a quite contrary strain, I will find thee, behutz, without, I will kiss thee—publicly 6 |