Song of Solomon 5:10 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

My beloved is white and ruddy— Fair and bright. Bochart. The chiefest among ten thousand. Pitts, in his account of his return from Mecca, thus describes those lights by which they travel in the night in the desert, and which are carried on the tops of high poles, to direct their march: "They are somewhat like iron stoves, into which they put short dry wood, with which some of the camels are loaded: It is carried in great sacks, which have a hole near the bottom, where the servants take it out, as they see the fires need a recruit. Every cottor hath one of these poles belonging to it, some of which have ten, some twelve of these lights on their tops, more or less; and they are likewise of different figures, as well as numbers; one perhaps oval, or like a gate; another triangular, or like an N, or M, &c. so that every one knows by them his respective cottor. They are carried in the front, and set up in the place where the caravan is to pitch, before that comes up, at some distance from each other. They are also carried by day, not lighted; but yet by the figure and number of them the Hagges are directed to what cottor they belong, as soldiers are by their colours where to rendezvous: and without such directions it would be impossible to avoid confusion in such a vast number of people." This account may tend to throw some light upon the present passage. The spouse says, My beloved is white and ruddy; the chiefest among ten thousand; or, as the margin of our English Bibles has it, a standard-bearer among ten thousand. All the ground for making these words synonymous, is, I presume, the supposing the standard-bearer to be the chiefest of the company; which by no means appears to be true: it is not so among the modern people of the East, any more than among us. I will not however press this, since what is meant is, One before whom a standard is borne; which is a mark of dignity in the East, as well as in the West; and which the word must signify, if any thing of this sort, any dignity be meant, since דגול dagul, is a passive, not an active participle in the Hebrew; that is to say, the word does not signify "one who lifts up a banner," but "one whom the listing up of the banner some way respects or concerns." It is not, however, so natural upon the whole to understand this passage of one before whom an ensign of dignity was borne, because the original word is most probably to be understood of a portable beacon, which is necessary to travellers in the night, but not, as far as I know, ever considered as a mark of dignity, on the one hand; whilst, on the other, a very easy sense may be put on the word, if it be understood of one of those eastern flambeaux; for in that view the participle paul of the verb will signify enlightened, and consequently dazzling, glittering, or something of that kind; and so the meaning of the spouse will appear to have probably been, (the words being now considered in their literal sense,) that her bridegroom was dazzling beyond ten thousand, or was dazzling like a person surrounded with ten thousand lights. It may not be unsuitable to add, that those places which speak of the standards of the tribes, and this which I am now endeavouring to illustrate, are all the passages in which the Hebrew word דגל dagal, occurs; excepting Psalms 20:5 and chap. Song of Solomon 2:4. The word beacon occurs indeed in another place in our version; Isaiah 30:17.; but it is not there, in the original, that word which I am supposing to signify a portable beacon, but another; which may possibly incline the learned reader not to admit that sense which I have affixed to this passage, and which I have been illustrating, as unwilling to suppose that there are two words in so limited a language to signify a beacon: It ought, however, to be remembered, that though our version renders תרן toren, a beacon, it properly signifies no more than a sign, whatever that sign might be; whether the raising of a spear, or displaying a flag, or any thing else. See Observations, p. 227, &c.