Thy neck [is] as a tower of ivory; thine eyes [like] the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose [is] as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus.
Ver. 4. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory.] Most smooth, white, and upright. Some do hereby understand magistrates, that support the State, as the neck doth the head. "I bear up the pillars of it," saith David. Others will have the ministers meant, who, being aloft in the Church, are to the same instead of watch towers or towers of defence. And especially then when they are in their pulpits - called towers in the Hebrew Neh 8:4 - reading and expounding God's law unto his people.
Thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon.] Glazed with tears of compunction and compassion - Nam faciles motus mens generosa capit - and well cleared to look into her own heart and life. Tears instead of gems were the ornaments of David's bed, saith Chrysostom. And surely that sweet singer never sang more melodiously than when his heart was broken most penitentially. Psa 6:1-10 Psa 51:1-19 Thus birds in the spring sing most sweetly when it rains most sadly; and tears of true contrition are pillulae lucis, pills made on purpose to clear the eyesight. When John wept, the sealed book was set open to him; Lilium lachryma sun seritur. Light is sown for the righteous.
Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon, &c.] Si verborum faciem consideremus, quid poterit magis dici ridiculum? saith Titleman upon the words: If we look upon the outside only of this text, what may seem to have been spoken more ridiculous? Is it so great a commendation to have a nose like a tower? That which we must herehence learn is, that seeing Christ is now risen again, and ascended up into heaven, we ought to bear our noses aloft, as it were, savouring things of the Spirit of Christ, discerning things that are excellent, and by a spiritual sagacity aspiring to eternity.
That looketh toward Damascus.] The chief city of Syria, having its name from the bloody excursions of thieves, as Peter Martyr a thinks; or else, as others, from the blood of righteous Abel there spilled, whence the place was called Damsech, "a bag of blood."
a Pet. Mart. in 1 Reg. xvi.