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Song of Solomon 6 · a question people ask

"There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number" (6:8). Whose are they?

In the text

The verse doesn't say. It names no king and no house; it says only, "There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number" (6:8). What the chapter does with them is set one beside them: "My dove, my perfect one, is unique" (6:9). And it brings the queens and the concubines back to praise her: "The queens and the concubines saw her, and they praised her" (6:9). These notes don't join the verse to any other passage, don't add up its numbers, and don't say what it tells about anyone. They keep to what the two verses set side by side: many, and one.

The verses

“There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother’s only daughter. She is the favorite one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines saw her, and they praised her.”
Song of Solomon 6:8-9 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Song of Solomon 6

Song of Solomon 6: I am my beloved’s

6:4 and 6:10 both end "awesome as an army with banners", with a word the Hebrew Bible has only three times. In Hebrew the favorite of 6:9 and the clear of 6:10 are one word. And Return comes four times in 6:13, and nowhere else in the Song.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions