a parcel (as packed up) · noun, common masculine singular construct
myrrh
הַמֹּ֤רha.Mor
H4753
myrrh (as distilling in drops · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
wellbeloved
דּוֹדִי֙do.Di
H1730
(figuratively) to love · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
lie
יָלִֽיןya.Lin
H3885
to stop (usually over night) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
breasts
שָׁדַ֖יsha.Dai
H7699
the breast of a woman or animal (as bulging) · noun, common masculine dual construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
John 19:39 And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound w…
Psalms 45:8 All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.
Ephesians 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
Genesis 43:11 And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down t…
Song of Solomon 2:7 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 pleas…
Song of Solomon 3:5 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 pleas…
Song of Solomon 4:6 Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.
Song of Solomon 4:14 Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
John Gill on Song of Solomon 1:13
A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me,.... These are the words of the church continued; expressing her great delight in Christ, and her strong love and affection for him, and therefore calls him "my well beloved"; which is expressive both of the greatness of Christ's love to her, and of the strength of her affection to him, as well as of her faith of interest in him; hence she says, he was as "a bundle of myrrh" to her. Some think (n) sweet marjoram is meant, or an herb of a sweet smell, very much like it, called "marum"; but myrrh is commonly understood; and not twigs or branches of it but sprigs, or the flowers of it, bound up as a nosegay, and carried in the bosom; or better, liqui…
Myrrh is extracted from the branches of a fragrant shrub that did not grow in Israel, but was imported from Arabia and India at extravagant cost. The sachet is a little packet of sweet-smelling myrrh. The woman’s desire for intimacy is expressed by comparing her lover to the sachet lying between her breasts. • According to the three-character dramatic view, the woman is with the king in one of his palace rooms, but the fragrance of myrrh between her breasts fondly reminds her of her shepherd lover who is truly there, closer to her heart than the king.
Rashi on Song of Solomon 1:13
A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me. My beloved has become to me as one who has a bundle of myrrh in his bosom, and he said to him, “Here, [take] this bundle, which will give a more fragrant aroma than the first one that you lost.” So, was the Holy One, Blessed Is He, appeased by Yisroel for the incident of the [golden] calf and found them an atonement for their iniquity and said, “Donate to the Tabernacle, and let the gold of the Tabernacle atone for the gold of the calf.”
Between my breasts he shall lie. Even though I betrayed Him, He said He would dwell there.49I.e., in the Tabernacle.
Between my breasts. Between the two staves of the Ark.50Maseches Yoma 54a; the Gemara there explains…
"It will lodge between my breasts," that is, in the governing part of my soul, which is located in the heart lying between the breasts. This indicates the fulfillment of the prophecy spoken by God, "I shall dwell and walk about among them, and I shall be their God and they shall be my people, says the Lord almighty." The bridegroom in person also makes the promise, "We shall come, my Father and I, and shall make our abode with him."
For this reason it ought to be clear to your minds that the fig tree was an image of the law, just as it is certain that the cluster of grapes prefigured the Savior, as the church declares in the Canticle of Canticles: "My brother is for me a cluster of henna." Christ, indeed, cannot exist without the law or the law without Christ, for we have said that the law is evidence of the gospel, and the gospel is the fulfillment of the law.
The location of the heart is said by experts to lie between the two breasts. Here is where the bride says that she has the sachet in which her treasure is kept. Also, the heart is said to be a source of warmth from which the body's heat is distributed through the arteries. The body's members are thereby heated, animated and nourished by the heart's fire. Therefore the bride has received the good odor of Christ in the governing part of the soul and has made her own heart a kind of sachet for such incense. And so she makes all her actions, like parts of the body, seethe with the breath from her heart so that no iniquity can cool her love for God in any member of her body.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Myrrh — Heb. mor. (1.) First mentioned as a principal ingredient in the holy anointing oil (Ex. 30:23). It formed part of the gifts brought by the wise men from the east, who came to worship the infant Jesus…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
