II.
(1) The rose. — Heb., chabatseleth. The identification of this flower is a much vexed question. From its derivation, it should be a bulbous plant (batsal — a bulb), and it happens that the flower which for other reasons best satisfies the requirements is of this kind, viz., the Sweet-scented Narcissus (Narcissus tazetta). “Others have suggested the crocus, of which there are many species very common, but they are deficient in perfume, and there is no bulb more fragrant than the narcissus; it is, besides, one of which the Orientals arc passionately fond. While it is in flower it is to be seen in all the bazaars, and the men as well as the women always carry two or three blossoms, at which they are continually smelling” (Tristram, Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 477). Dr. Thomson prefers the mallow, from the fact that the Arabs call it khubbazey. In Isaiah 35:1, the only other place where chabatseleth occurs, the LXX., Vulg., and Chaldee render “lily,” and many eminent moderns “autumn crocus.” Here the LXX. and the Vulg. have flower.
Of Sharon. — Better, of the plain, as in the LXX. Here (as invariably except 1 Chronicles 5:16) the Hebrew has the article before sharon, but without definite local allusion to the district north of Philistia. The verse is by many taken as a snatch of a song into which the heroine breaks in answer to the eulogies on her beauty. It is certainly spoken with modest and lowly intention: “I am a mere flower of the plain, a lily of the valley;” by no means like Tennyson’s “Queen lily and rose in one.”
Lily. — So the LXX. and Vulg.; Heb., shôshanath (fem. of shôshan, or shûshan; comp. name Susan), a word occurring seven times in the poem, three times in 1 Kings 7, and in the headings to Psalms 45, 60, 69, 80. The Arabs have the word, and apply it to any brilliantly coloured flower, as the tulip, anemone, ranunculus. Although many plants of the lily tribe flourish in Palestine, none of them give a predominant character to the flora. There are, however, many other plants which would in popular language be called lilies. Of these, the Irises may claim the first mention; and Dr. Thomson (Land and Book, p. 256) unhesitatingly fixes on one, which he calls Huleh Lily, or the Lily of the Gospel and of the Song of Songs. “Our flower,” he says, “delights most in the valleys, but it is also found in the mountains. It grows among thorns, and I have sadly lacerated my hands while extricating it from them.... Gazelles still delight to feed among them, and you can scarcely ride through the woods north of Tabor, where these lilies abound, without frightening them from their flowery pasture.” Tristram, however, prefers the Anemone (A. coronaria), “the most gorgeously painted, the most conspicuous in spring, and the most universally spread of all the treasures of the Holy Land” (Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 464).