Song of Solomon 3:1-5 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

A Dream of Love. The adjuration Song of Solomon 3:5 (cf. Song of Solomon 2:7) may have been added to adapt the passionate poem to the wedding week, in which there was much noisy revelling. For another song with similar motive cf. Song of Solomon 5:2 ff. The bride tells a dream which came to her, night after night, and was a reflection of the love that moved her spirit in its waking hours. It is the story of the oft-repeated and at last successful search for him who was the object of her love, till they were happy in her mother's home. The city may be any town or village; the broad ways are the open spaces in contrast to the narrow lanes. watchmen (cf. Psalms 127:1; Isaiah 21:11).

Song of Solomon 3:1-5

1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

4 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

5 I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.