Song of Solomon 6 · a question people ask
"Without realizing it, my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots" (6:12). What does this verse mean?
The chapter doesn't explain it, and it doesn't say who speaks: the Hebrew has I and me, but doesn't show whether a man or a woman is speaking. What can be said is what its words are. Without realizing it is lo yada'ti: not, and the verb yada, know, with I. My desire is nafshi, the word nefesh with my, the same word as my soul in "whom my soul loves" (1:7, 3:1) (tap desire). The verse doesn't say where the chariots are, or whose, beyond "my royal people’s" (6:12). The next verse turns with "Return, return, Shulammite!" (6:13). These notes don't choose a meaning for 6:12, don't say who speaks, and don't join it to any other verse.
The verses
“Without realizing it, my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots. Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you. Lover Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of Mahanaim?”
“Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you graze your flock, where you rest them at noon; for why should I be as one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?”
“By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him.”