Song of Solomon 3 · a question people ask
3:11 speaks of King Solomon "in the day of his weddings". Is the king the one the speaker sought in 3:1-4?
The chapter doesn't say. 3:1-4 names no one: the speaker seeks and finds "him whom my soul loves" (3:4). 3:6-11 names King Solomon: "Go out, you daughters of Zion, and see King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother has crowned him, in the day of his weddings, in the day of the gladness of his heart" (3:11) (tap weddings). The two stand side by side in one chapter, and the chapter doesn't join them or keep them apart. It names no bride in 3:6-11. The introduction says the chapters won't join the king, Solomon and the one called my beloved, or keep them apart, where the text doesn't, and these notes don't. They don't join 3:11 to any wife of Solomon named elsewhere, and they don't make Solomon a picture of anyone.
The verses
“By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. I will get up now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. The watchmen who go about the city found me; “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” I had scarcely passed from them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me.”