Song of Solomon 2:17

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
day	הַיּ֔וֹם hai.Yom	H3117	a day (as the warm hours) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
break	שֶׁיָּפ֙וּחַ֙ shei.ya.Fu.ach	H6315	to puff · relative particle + verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
shadows	הַצְּלָלִ֑ים ha.tze.la.Lim	H6752	shade · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
away	וְנָ֖סוּ ve.Na.su	H5127	to flit · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
turn	סֹב֩ so	H5437	to revolve · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
beloved	דוֹדִ֜י do.Di	H1730	(figuratively) to love · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
like	דְּמֵה de.meh-	H1819	to compare · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
roe	לִצְבִ֗י litz.Vi	H6643	splendor (as conspicuous) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
young	לְעֹ֥פֶר le.'O.fer	H6082	a fawn (from the dusty color) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
hart	הָאַיָּלִ֖ים ha.'ai.ya.Lim	H354	a stag or male deer · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
mountains	הָ֥רֵי Ha.rei	H2022	a mountain or range of hills (sometimes used figurative… · noun, common masculine plural construct
Bether	בָֽתֶר Va.ter	H1336	Bether · noun, common masculine singular absolute

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

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 2:8-9 The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.
Song of Solomon 8:14 Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.
Luke 1:78 Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
Romans 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
Hebrews 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See,…
Hebrews 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered…
2 Peter 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the d…

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 2:17

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away,.... Which may be connected with Sol 2:16; either with the former part, "my beloved is mine", &c. Sol 2:16; and then the sense is, as long as night and day continue, and God's covenant with both stands sure; so long union to Christ, and covenant interest in him, will abide: or with the latter part, "he feedeth among the lilies until", &c. even until his second coming: or with the next clause in this verse, turn, my beloved; and so is a prayer for Christ's speedy coming to her, and continued presence with her, until the day should break: which may be understood either of the Gospel day made by the rising of Christ, the sun of righteousness, at h…

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Tyndale Open Study Notes on Song of Solomon 2:16–end

In the dramatic view, the woman has already been separated from her lover and is horrified by the notion that she will not see him soon. One night, her worries drive her from bed to search frantically for him; she finds him and takes him to see her mother. 2:16-17 He browses . . . like a gazelle: The woman has so identified her lover with the strength and speed of a gazelle that she portrays his delay as grazing in the country. • Alternatively, the lover, in the guise of a gazelle, grazes among the lilies that possibly represent the woman, suggesting the intimate association of the couple. The woman is often likened to a garden (see also 4:12, 15-16; 5:1; 6:2). • return to me: Her longing t…

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Rashi on Song of Solomon 2:17

Until the sun spreads. This refers to the preceding verse, “My beloved is mine, and I am his,”39Above Verse 16. until the time that the iniquity caused the sun to darken me in the heat of the day, and the heat intensified.40See Above 1:5-7. And the shadows flee. We sinned with the [golden] calf; we sinned with the spies, “and the shadows flee,” [i.e.,] the merits that protected us [disappeared because] we broke off His yoke. You turned away my beloved. I caused him to leave me on mountains which were far away from me. Distant. An expression of separation and distance.41Alternatively, הרי בתר means split mountain and is referring to the Mount of Olives which will be split as per the prophe…

The Church Fathers

With the barren synagogue abandoned, she asks the bridegroom to come to those downtrodden and humiliated and formerly idolatrous souls who will be raised with him to heavenly heights.
— Cyril of Alexandria, FRAGMENTS IN THE COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:17

In this verse, the Lord's resurrection is taught and foretold. Just as the apostles were afraid without him, terrorized by the treachery of the Jews, so also is the soul, which, in a certain sense, is naked and unarmed without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, terrorized by the treachery of demons.
— Aponius, EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 5:4

Since, then, there are in the Old Testament precepts that we who belong to the New Testament are not compelled to observe, why do not the Jews realize that they have remained stationary in useless antiquity rather than hurl charges against us who hold fast to the new promises, because we do not observe the old? Just as it is written in the Canticle of Canticles: "The day has broken, let the shadows retire," the spiritual meaning has already dawned, the natural action has already ceased. "The God of Gods, the Lord has spoken: and he has called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof."
— Augustine of Hippo, IN ANSWER TO THE JEWS 6:8

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

Bether — Dissection or separation, certain mountains mentioned in Cant. 2:17; probably near Lebanon.
Bether · Mountains of — Mountains of
Day · Artificial, divided into: Break of — Artificial, divided into: Break of
Hart, The · Illustrative: Of Christ — Illustrative: Of Christ
Roe, The · Illustrative of: Christ — Illustrative of: Christ

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).