His head [is as] the most fine gold, his locks [are] bushy, [and] black as a raven.
Ver. 11. His head is as the most fine gold.] Here she begins her particular praise of his various parts; and here she may seem to speak with the tongues of men and of angels, performing, as lovers used to do, that for him which he had done for her before, Song of Solomon 4:1,4 , &c. though all she could say falleth far short of him; and well she might say after all, as Nazianzen sometime said of Basil, ‘There wants but his own tongue to commend him with'; Loquimur de Deo non quantum debemus, sed quantum possumus. In speaking of Christ's excellencies, men may speak what they can; they cannot possibly speak so much as they ought, they cannot hyperbolise. If any shall think the Church doth here, he must needs be of those that either know him not, or are not able to judge aright of his worth, as once Cicero a said of Crassus and Antony, the orators. Nusquam Origines non ardet, sed nusquam est ardentior, &c., saith Erasmus. b Origen is never but earnest; howbeit he is never more earnest than when he discourseth about Christ; in other things he may seem to excel others, but in this he excelleth himself. The same we may well say of the Church in this place, in setting forth the surpassing purity and perfection of her spouse: Quem manibus propriis finxit cordata Minerva. And first she makes his head to be of the finest and firmest gold - Fess - gold, so the Arabic, from the Hebrew, calleth it; and the land of Fess seemeth to be named of such gold there. David's Michtam, or Golden Psalm, comes from one of the words here used; for in the original thus it is, "His head is most glistering gold, yea, most solid gold"; c that is, his deity which dwells in him is most pure and glorious - for "the head of Christ is God" 1Co 11:3 - and that fulness of grace which is communicated to his human nature is wondrously beautiful, and so sets it forth as black curled locks do a fresh countenance.
“ Spectandus nigris oculis, nigroque capillo est. ”
a Tull. de Orator.
b Erasmus in Praef. ad Orig. Opera.
c Or, He is the gold of gold, as Athens was the Greece of Greece.