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Song of Solomon 8 · a question people ask

"Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon" (8:11). Is that the same vineyard as "My own vineyard" in the next verse?

In the text

The chapter doesn't say. 8:11 speaks of Solomon: "Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He leased out the vineyard to keepers. Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit" (8:11) (tap vineyard). 8:12 speaks to him: "My own vineyard is before me. The thousand are for you, Solomon, two hundred for those who tend its fruit" (8:12). In Hebrew for you is masculine, said to Solomon, and the speaker's own words don't mark whether the speaker is a man or a woman. The chapter sets a vineyard that Solomon had beside my own vineyard, and doesn't say whether they are one or two, who speaks 8:12, or what either vineyard is. These notes don't say either, and they don't join Solomon here to the man the Song calls my beloved: the introduction leaves that open.

The verses

“Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He leased out the vineyard to keepers. Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit. My own vineyard is before me. The thousand are for you, Solomon, two hundred for those who tend its fruit.”
Song of Solomon 8:11-12 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Song of Solomon 8

Song of Solomon 8: Love is strong as death

Right after the last charge not to awaken love (8:4), the next verse has "Under the apple tree I awakened you" (8:5), with the same Hebrew verb. And the Song's last two verses speak first to a woman and then to a man, ending with "Come away, my beloved!" (8:14), whose likeness of a gazelle on the mountains shares its Hebrew words with 2:17.

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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