to descend (literally · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
garden
גִּנַּ֤תgi.Nat
H1594
a garden · noun, common feminine singular construct
nuts
אֱגוֹז֙'e.goyZ
H93
a nut · noun, common masculine singular absolute
see
לִרְא֖וֹתlir.'ot
H7200
to see · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
fruits
בְּאִבֵּ֣יbe.'i.Bei
H3
a green plant · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
valley
הַנָּ֑חַלha.Na.chal
H5158
a stream · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
see
לִרְאוֹת֙lir.'Ot
H7200
to see · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
vine
הַגֶּ֔פֶןha.Ge.fen
H1612
a vine (as twining) · definite article + noun, common both genders singular absolute
flourished
הֲפָֽרְחָ֣הha.fa.re.Chah
H6524
to break forth as a bud · interrogative particle + verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
pomegranates
הָרִמֹּנִֽיםha.ri.mo.Nim
H7416
a pomegranate · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
budded
הֵנֵ֖צוּhe.Ne.tzu
H5132
properly · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person common plural
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 7:12 Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: ther…
Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the mi…
Psalms 92:12-15 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Song of Solomon 4:12-15 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
Song of Solomon 5:1 I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drun…
Song of Solomon 6:2 My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
Isaiah 5:2-4 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also…
Mark 11:13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing bu…
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 6:11
I went down into the garden of nuts,.... This is very properly taken notice of in this song of love; it being usual for newly married persons to get nuts, and throw them among children, to make pastime; to signify, among other things, that they now renounced childish things (u). These are the words of Christ, declaring to the church where he went, and what he employed himself about, when he departed from her; see Sol 6:2. Of the garden, as it intends the church; see Gill on Sol 5:12; into which he was invited to come, and did, as here; see Sol 4:16; here it is called a "garden of nuts", which may design a spot in it destined for this fruit; by which some understand "nutmegs", which is not ve…
I went down: There is ambiguity over who is speaking here. The NLT presents it as the beginning of the young woman’s speech, though it could just as plausibly be a continuation of the young man’s. The trip to the walnut grove is a poetic way of expressing desire for a romantic meeting.
Rashi on Song of Solomon 6:11
I went down to the garden of nuts. This too is the words of the Divine Presence, “Behold, I have come to this second Beis Hamikdosh, to you.”
To see the moist plants of the valley. What moisture, [i.e.,] good deeds I would see in you.
Whether the vine has blossomed. Whether you would blossom before Me [into] Torah scholars, scribes, and teachers.
If the pomegranates had sprouted. Those who fulfill the commandments are full of merits. Why are [Bnei] Yisroel compared to a nut? Just as this nut, you see it entirely of wood [shell], and what is inside is not discernible, and you crack it and find it full of compartments of edible food, so are the [Bnei] Yisroel modest and humble in their deed…
You wish to know the place? He says in the Canticles, "I came down to the nut garden"; for it was a garden where he was crucified.
By "nut plantation" they refer to the present life, which is harsh, troublesome and laborious but contains hidden in itself the fruit of virtue. The fruit of the nut has a bitter skin on the outside, the second one is tough and resistant, and the edible part is hidden as though deposited in a kind of inner chamber and is not extracted without effort. Such also is the present life, containing as it does harsh pain and grief, containing hardship and effort which, however, are not fruitless, not useless, holding the fruit hidden within them. Hence blessed Paul also says, "Our life is hidden with Christ in God; but when Christ our life is revealed, then we too shall live in him."
Solomon bears witness that a nut is customarily employed as a figure of the present church when in the Song of Songs he speaks in the character of the faithful teachers.… For just as a nut has sweet fruit on the inside but does not show it on the outside unless its hard shell can be broken, so in the same way do the righteous maintain the sweetness of spiritual grace in their inmost heart while they are in this present life. Its magnitude cannot be perceived by their neighbors until the time when the bodily dwelling is dissolved and the souls freed from it can gaze upon one another in heavenly light, and they individually shine so much with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and they are loved so much by one another, that absolutely nothing remains hidden.
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
Nuts — Were among the presents Jacob sent into Egypt for the purpose of conciliating Joseph (Gen. 43:11). This was the fruit of the pistachio tree, which resembles the sumac. It is of the size of an olive.…
Valley — (1.) Heb. bik’ah, a “cleft” of the mountains (Deut. 8:7; 11:11; Ps. 104:8; Isa. 41:18); also a low plain bounded by mountains, as the plain of Lebanon at the foot of Hermon around the sources of the…
Gardens · Illustrative: Of the church — Illustrative: Of the church
Nut · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Pomegranate Tree, The · Illustrative: Of saints — Illustrative: Of saints
Righteous · .Vines — .Vines
Saints, Compared To · Vines — Vines
Valleys · Illustrative: Of the church of Christ — Illustrative: Of the church of Christ
Vine, The · Cultivated: In the valleys — Cultivated: In the valleys
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).
