Song of Solomon 3:1

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
night	בַּלֵּיל֔וֹת ba.lei.Lot	H3915	properly · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine plural absolute
bed	מִשְׁכָּבִי֙ mish.ka.Vi	H4904	a bed (figuratively · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
sought	בִּקַּ֕שְׁתִּי bi.Kash.ti	H1245	to search out (by any method · verb, piel perfect, 1st person common singular
soul	נַפְשִׁ֑י naf.Shi	H5315	properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
loveth	שֶׁאָהֲבָ֖ה she.'a.ha.Vah	H157	to have affection for (sexually or otherwise) · relative particle + verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
sought	בִּקַּשְׁתִּ֖יו bi.kash.Tiv	H1245	to search out (by any method · verb, piel perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
found	מְצָאתִֽיו me.tza.Tiv	H4672	properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular

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

1 Peter 1:8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
Song of Solomon 1:7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turnet…
Song of Solomon 5:6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find…
Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth…
Isaiah 55:6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
Psalms 22:2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
Psalms 130:1-2 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.
Song of Solomon 5:8 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

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 3:1

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth,.... The day being not yet broke, the night of Jewish darkness still on the church, and the shadow of the ceremonial law as yet stretched upon her; and having some knowledge of Christ by types and prophecies, desires more, and seeks it in the use of means: though the words may be taken in a more large sense, and represent the state and condition of the church and of all true believers in any age, and at one time as well as another; who, when their beloved is absent, it is "night" with them; as Christ's presence makes day, his absence makes night; and it was now night with the Church, either of affliction, or of darkness and desertion, and i…

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Rashi on Song of Solomon 3:1

On my bed at night. In my distress, when I lived in the darkness1The Bnei Yisroel were left in darkness after the Clouds of Glory had withdrawn from them and the holy crown that had been given to them at Mt. Sinai was taken away. (Targum) for the entire thirty-eight years2After the sin of the spies it was declared that the Bnei Yisroel would wander in the wilderness for forty years. Since two years had already past, they had to wander for another thirty-eight years and during this time the Divine Presence was hidden from them. that the [Bnei] Yisroel were under reproach. I sought him but did not find him. “For I will not go up in your midst,”3Shemos 33:3. This was on account of the golden c…

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Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).

The Church Fathers

For we seek the beloved in bed when in some little rest of the present life we sigh with longing for our Redeemer. We seek by night, because even if the mind is now awake in him, nevertheless the eye still grows dim.
— Gregory the Dialogist, 40 Homilies on the Gospels, Homily 25

Let us follow him by day, the present day of the church, which Abraham saw and was glad. This is why we follow Christ during the day; for he will not be found by night. "Upon my bed," Scripture says, "by night I sought him whom my soul loves. I called him, but he gave no answer."
— Ambrose of Milan, Concerning Virginity 8:45

To what does this bed refer, upon which the church seeks the one whom its soul loves, if not to the bed of its heart in which wisdom rests, where it seeks our Lord and Savior through continuous meditation? If the bed is the secrecy of the heart, then what is the night in which the church sought the Lord but was unable to find him? Surely it means that the God of light was not easily found in darkness.
— Gregory of Elvira, EXPLANATION OF THE SONG OF SONGS 5:2

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

Beds · Saints meditate and praise God while on — Saints meditate and praise God while on
Night · Illustrative of: Seasons of spiritual desertion — Illustrative of: Seasons of spiritual desertion
Seekers · 5:8;8:5,6; — 5:8;8:5,6;

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).