Song of Solomon 5:6 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
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I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.
to search out (by any method · verb, piel perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
find
מְצָאתִ֔יהוּme.tza.Ti.hu
H4672
properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
called
קְרָאתִ֖יוke.ra.Tiv
H7121
to call out to (i.e. properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
answer
עָנָֽנִי'a.Na.ni
H6030
properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular + 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
Song of Solomon 5:2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: fo…
Hosea 5:15 I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.
Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Genesis 42:28 And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they were afraid, sayi…
1 Samuel 28:6 And when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.
2 Samuel 16:10 And the king said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? so let him curse, because the LORD hath said unto him, Curse David. Who s…
Psalms 22:1-2 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Psalms 28:1 Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
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 5:6
I opened to my beloved,.... Which was what he desired, and was done in virtue of his putting in his hand by the hole of the door; or by the exertion of his efficacious grace, working in her both to will and to do, without which it would not have been done; namely, her heart dilated, the desires and affections of her soul enlarged towards Christ, and every grace drawn forth and exercised on him; and though the heart of a believer is sometimes shut to Christ, yet when it is opened, it is only patent to him; the church thought Christ was still at the door, and might be the more confirmed in it by what she found on the handles of the lock; but lo her mistake,
but my beloved had withdrawn himsel…
My lover tried to unlatch the door, and my heart thrilled: The man persists in his attempts to arouse the woman, and she eventually responds positively to his overtures. However, by the time she responds, he has given up or become otherwise occupied. This is a powerful poetic picture of the struggles of two lovers to be sexually intimate with each other.
Rashi on Song of Solomon 5:6
But my beloved had vanished and gone. He was hidden and concealed from me, as in, “the roundness of your flanks,”17Below 7:2. i.e., the hidden places חַמּוּקֵי of your thighs, because the thigh is hidden. [And as in,] “Until when will you hide תִּתְחַמָּקִין,”18Yirmiyahu 31:21. [i.e.,] will you hide and cover yourself because of the shame that you betrayed Me?
My soul departed as he spoke. For he said, “I will not come into your house because at first you did not wish to open [the door].”
"I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had gone." What is this going? Simply that he has penetrated into the center of the mind as it was said to Mary, "And his sword will pierce your soul." For the living Word of God, as piercing as a sharp sword, comprehends both the limits of bodily thoughts and the secret places of the heart.
The Lord seeks us, when he says: "I sought and there was no one. I called, and there was no one to answer." And he himself is sought by his bride who mourns with tears: "On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him. I called him, and he gave me no answer."
Hence again she says: "My soul melted when the beloved spoke." For the mind of a person not seeking the form of its Creator is badly hardened, because it remains cold in itself. But if it has now begun to burn with desire to follow him whom it loves, melted by the fire of love it runs. It becomes anxious with desire, all things in the world that pleased grow worthless, there is nothing that delights outside the Creator, and things that formerly delighted the soul afterward become grievously burdensome. Nothing consoles its sadness, as long as he who is desired is not yet seen. The mind grieves, the very light is wearisome; and by such fire the rust of guilt is refined in the mind, and the kindled soul, as if in the manner of gold, because through use it lost its appearance, becomes bright through burning.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
