a woman · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
beloved
דוֹדֵ֔ךְdo.Dekh
H1730
(figuratively) to love · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
aside
פָּנָ֣הpa.Nah
H6437
to turn · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
seek
וּנְבַקְשֶׁ֖נּוּu.ne.vak.She.nu
H1245
to search out (by any method · conjunction + verb, piel, 1st person common plural + 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
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 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…
Jeremiah 14:8 O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that t…
Ruth 2:12 The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.
Ruth 1:16-17 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodge…
Song of Solomon 1:4 Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love…
Song of Solomon 2:2 As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
Song of Solomon 6:4 Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners.
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 6:1
Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women?.... The title is the same used by them, and by Christ before them, Sol 1:8; and here repeated, to assure her that they were serious in asking this question, and that it was in great respect to her they put it; and which, to the same sense, in other words, is expressed,
whither is thy beloved turned aside? which way did he take? on what hand did he turn, to the right or left, when he went from thy door? They ask no longer who or what he was, being satisfied with the church's description of him; by which they had gained some knowledge of him, and had their affections drawn out unto him; and were desirous of knowing more of him and of be…
The conversation that ends this poem indicates that it is not an actual event. The dream ends as the young women of Jerusalem ask the woman where her man has gone. The woman tells them not to concern themselves with finding him—he is back in bed with her, enjoying his garden with its spice beds and lilies, a description of sexual intimacy.
Rashi on Song of Solomon 6:1
Where has your beloved gone. The nations taunt and provoke Yisroel, “Where has your Beloved gone?” Why has He left you abandoned like a widow?1Alternatively, where has He gone? (Gra)
Where has your beloved turned. When He returned and rested His Spirit upon Coresh, and he granted permission to build the Beis Hamikdosh, and they began to build, they [the nations] came and said to them, “Where has your Beloved turned?”2Alternatively, what does He occupy Himself with now? (Gra) If He is returning to you, we will seek Him with you, as the matter is stated, “Now the adversaries of Yehudah and Binyamin heard that the people of the exile were building a Temple, etc. And they approached Zerubavel,…
Where has your beloved gone, etc.? The beloved is said to depart and turn away, not because the Lord ever abandons those whom He has already acquired and continues to acquire others, but because by the power of His divine nature He can be present everywhere. Thus, He goes or turns away to associate with others whenever He wills, yet still preserving in grace those whom He has already gathered to Himself. As He says to Moses: "Gather for me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be elders of the people and officers, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them" (Numbers 11:16). Not that He lessened the grace given to Moses, but because He made those whom Moses had, partakers of that grace. This is like the example of a flame, from which when you light a candle, you ignite it with light, and the flame from which you light it remains whole. It can also be rightly understood that the beloved departs and turns away from the bride for a time, when we, longing with love for Him, are inflamed to the point of shedding tears, fulfilling the duty of prayer with fixed and unwavering intent, transferring the entire mind from carnal desires to eternal things. Yet, He does not always grant what is desired. Therefore, we rightly ask those whom we believe to know and are worthy of such a quest, where the Lord has gone or turned away, desiring to be shown the presence of those who with greater virtues and signs of a pure mind reveal the divine grace within them, so that by their example and discourse, we may also ourselves be instructed and more and more progressively grow in the love of our beloved. And they rightly say, "And we will seek Him with you," because any soul that tries to seek Christ without the companionship of the holy Church will not be counted among the daughters of Jerusalem, but rightly among those of whom the mother of holy Samuel, holding the type of the Church, says to the despising priest of the synagogue: "Do not consider your maidservant as one of the daughters of Belial" (1 Samuel 1:16).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
