Song of Solomon 6 Bible study: I am my beloved’s

The chapter opens with a question: "Where has your beloved gone, you fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?" (6:1). The verse doesn't name who asks. They speak as we, and in Hebrew each your is said to a woman (tap beloved). They call her fairest among women, as 5:9 does; in Hebrew those are the same two words as "most beautiful among women" (1:8). The answer comes in the next two verses: "My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies" (6:2), and "I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies" (6:3). As the notes on chapter 2 point out, 6:3 is 2:16 turned round: "My beloved is mine, and I am his. He browses among the lilies" (2:16) (tap lilies). Here is what almost everyone misses in the Hebrew: 2:16 begins dodi li, my beloved is mine, and 6:3 begins ani ledodi, I am my beloved’s, and then has vedodi li, and my beloved is mine; the last two words of the two verses are the same. And 7:10 will open with the same words as 6:3: "I am my beloved’s. His desire is toward me" (7:10).

אָיֹםayomsay a-YOME

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "terrible, dreadful". Strong's: "frightful". "You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners" (6:4). The Hebrew Bible has the word three times: twice in this chapter, in 6:4 and in "and awesome as an army with banners" (6:10), and once in Habakkuk 1:7. Both times in the Song it comes with the same next word, as an army with banners (tap banners), and both verses have beautiful too. The chapter doesn't say why she is called by the word; these notes don't either.