Song of Solomon 6:8

There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
threescore	שִׁשִּׁ֥ים shi.Shim	H8346	sixty · cardinal number, masculine plural absolute
queens	מְּלָכ֔וֹת me.la.Khot	H4436	a queen · noun, common feminine plural absolute
fourscore	וּשְׁמֹנִ֖ים u.she.mo.Nim	H8084	eighty · conjunction + cardinal number, masculine plural absolute
concubines	פִּֽילַגְשִׁ֑ים pi.lag.Shim	H6370	a concubine · noun, common masculine plural absolute
virgins	וַעֲלָמ֖וֹת va.'a.la.Mot	H5959	a lass (as veiled or private) · conjunction + noun, common feminine plural absolute
number	מִסְפָּֽר mis.Par	H4557	a number · noun, common masculine singular absolute

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

Psalms 45:14 She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee.
1 Kings 11:3 And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.
1 Kings 11:1 But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and…
2 Chronicles 11:21 And Rehoboam loved Maachah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines: (for he took eighteen wives, and threescore concu…
Psalms 45:9 Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.
Revelation 7:9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood bef…

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 6:8

There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. In this verse and Sol 6:9 the church is commended as she stood related to others; and is compared with them, and preferred to them. The words may be considered either as an assertion, "there are", &c. or as a supposition, "though there be", &c. yet Christ's church is but one, and excels them all. "Queens" are principal and lawful wives of kings; "concubines", secondary or half wives, as the word (i) signifies; who were admitted to the bed, but their children did not inherit: "virgins", unmarried persons, maids of honour, who waited on the queen. The allusion is to the custom of kings and great personages, who…

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Tyndale Open Study Notes on Song of Solomon 6:8-9

If the Song were an allegory of the Lord’s love for his people, it would provide a very weak parallel, since Solomon’s excesses in marrying do a poor job of picturing God’s love and faithfulness (see 1 Kgs 11:1-13). • sixty queens: Many of Solomon’s wives were obtained by marrying into international treaties (see 1 Kgs 11:1-3, 8). • Concubines were wives who had secondary status, lower than a wife but higher than a slave. Concubines were acquired by war, debt repayment, or purchase. • In the anthology view, the reference to queens and concubines simply means that the woman herself is more desirable than all other women.

Rashi on Song of Solomon 6:8

There are sixty queens. [Referring to] Avrohom and his descendants. The sons of Keturah are sixteen. Yishmael and his sons are thirteen. Yitzchok and his sons are three. The sons of Yaakov are twelve. The sons of Eisav are sixteen. [All of the above are listed] in Divrei Hayomim14Chapter 1. , and total sixty. And if you should say that Timna15Eisav’s granddaughter. should be excluded because she is a woman, then count Avrohom in the number [of sixty]. And eighty concubines. [If you count] Noach and his sons until Avrohom, [i.e.,] all the generations of those who left the Ark, you will find them to be eighty. And just as the queens, who are the kings’ wives, are superior in greatness over th…

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The Church Fathers

The word queens refers to the souls that rule in the realm of the intelligible and spiritual. The word concubines [refers] to the souls that receive an earthly reward, concerning whom it is said, "They have received their reward."
— Augustine of Hippo, ON EIGHTY-THREE VARIED QUESTIONS 55

Hence, then, it is that Scripture records that some of the Patriarchs had several wives at once, others took other wives when the former had died; so that this may be figuratively indicated, that certain men can exercise several virtues at once, while others do not begin those that follow before they have brought the former to perfection. Hence, finally, Solomon is reported to have had several wives at once.
— Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON GENESIS 11.2

In the present verse, therefore, three orders of merit are indicated to be in the church according to the following enigma. First, clearly, there are teachers, living an immaculate life. Second, there are the teachable, who imitate the lives of their teachers and burn with great desire to understand the content of the teaching and to distinguish sound doctrine from unsound doctrine. But the third order is that of maidens, for whom only belief in the one God helps toward salvation, who are not yet worthy to be joined to the sacred number. Although all of them may have the Word of the Father as King, he who was with the Father in the beginning and always remains God in the Father, the dignity of merit nevertheless escapes them.
— Aponius, EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 9:21

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

Queen — No explicit mention of queens is made till we read of the “queen of Sheba.” The wives of the kings of Israel are not so designated. In Ps. 45:9, the Hebrew for “queen” is not malkah, one actually…

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).