Song of Solomon 5:9

What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
beloved	דּוֹדֵ֣ךְ do.Dekh	H1730	(figuratively) to love · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
beloved	מִדּ֔וֹד mi.Dod	H1730	(figuratively) to love · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
fairest	הַיָּפָ֖ה hai.ya.Fah	H3303	beautiful (literally or figuratively) · definite article + adjective, feminine singular absolute
women	בַּנָּשִׁ֑ים ba.na.Shim	H802	a woman · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
beloved	דּוֹדֵ֣ךְ do.Dekh	H1730	(figuratively) to love · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
beloved	מִדּ֔וֹד mi.Dod	H1730	(figuratively) to love · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
thou	שֶׁכָּ֖כָה she.Ka.khah	H3602	just so · relative particle + adverb
charge	הִשְׁבַּעְתָּֽנוּ hish.ba'.Ta.nu	H7650	to seven oneself · verb, hiphil perfect, 2nd 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 1:8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.
Song of Solomon 6:1 Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee.
Song of Solomon 6:9-10 My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and…
Psalms 45:13 The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.
Psalms 87:3 Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah.
Isaiah 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see…
Matthew 16:13-17 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
Matthew 21:10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?

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 5:9

What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women?.... The same title Christ gives her, Sol 1:8; and from whom these daughters seem to have taken it; and, in giving it to her, might be assured they were right, since he, who knew her perfectly well, so calls her; in what sense she was so fair; see Gill on Sol 1:8, and this they used, to show their esteem of her, and that they were willing to do all the service they could for her; and what made them so attentive to her charge, and so desirous of knowing her beloved; since they concluded he must be some extraordinary person that one so fair and beautiful as she was should make the object of her love and choice: for this…

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Tyndale Open Study Notes on Song of Solomon 5:8-9

The woman enlists the young women of Jerusalem to help her find her lover. They ask her to describe him, and this leads into the second descriptive poem (wasf) of the Song (see study note on 4:1–5:1). 5:8 I am weak with love: The woman’s trauma is an image for her lovesickness (cp. 2:5).

Rashi on Song of Solomon 5:9

With what does your beloved excel another beloved. This is what the nations were asking Yisroel, “What is it about your God more than all the other gods, that you allow yourselves to be burned and hanged because of Him?”36I.e., why are you so loyal to a God Who has forsaken you? (Metzudas Dovid) That you bind us under oath. To testify before Him about your love.

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

How is your beloved better than another beloved, etc. It is open for a faithful brother to say to another faithful brother: I beseech you, because I find that you are fervent in the love of the Redeemer, also speak to me of Him, confirm me with a salutary exhortation, so that the same love in my heart may grow by His benefits and gifts. Indeed, for a long time, conscious of my sins, I began to have fear of Him, but now, with the strength of the mind increasing, having become more secure about the forgiveness of sins, I am delighted to hear something about His love. Therefore, tell me, go ahead, what is your beloved like from your beloved? That is, from the part where he should rather be loved than feared. You have also such a word in the Song of Isaiah: A vineyard was made for my beloved in a horn, in a fertile place, and so forth, until it says: The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah, his pleasant plant (Isaiah V). However, the beloved from the beloved can be understood as the Son from the Father, just as light from light, God from God, which is rightly believed and confessed. For just as there is one love and one divinity of the Father and the Son, so there is one affection, with John bearing witness, who says: And everyone who loves Him who generated, loves him who is born of Him (1 John III). A worthy response follows from the part of the bride.
— Bede, Commentary on the Song of Songs

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

Love To Christ · His personal excellence is deserving of — His personal excellence is deserving of

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).