Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, That spoil the vineyards; For our vineyards are in blossom.

Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines: for our vineyard hath flourished.

Take us the foxes, The little foxes, that spoil the vineyards; For our vineyards are in bloom.

Seize ye for us foxes, Little foxes, destroyers of vineyards, Even our sweet-smelling vineyards.

Take for us the foxes, the little foxes, which do damage to the vines; our vines have young grapes.

The bride answers by singing what appears to be a fragment of a vine-dresser's ballad, insinuating the vineyard duties imposed on her by her brethren Song 1:6, which prevent her from joining him. The destructive propensities of foxes or jackals in general are referred to, no grapes existing at the season indicated. Allegorical interpretations make these foxes symbolize "false teachers" (compare Ezekiel 13:4).

Take us the foxes - That these were ruinous to vines all authors allow. They love the vine, and they are eaten in autumn in some countries, according to Galen, when they are very fat with eating the grapes. They abounded in Judea; and did most damage when the clusters were young and tender. It is likely that these are the words of the bridegroom to his companions, just as he was entering the apartment of his spouse. "Take care of the vineyard: set the traps for the foxes, which are spoiling the vines; and destroy their young as far as possible."

Take for us the foxes, the (i) little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines [have] tender grapes.
(i) Suppress the heretics while they are young, that is, when they begin to show their malice, and destroy the vine of the Lord.

Take us the foxes,.... Of which there were great numbers in Judea; see Judges 15:4; these words are directed not to angels, nor to civil magistrates, but to ministers of the word; but whether the words of Christ, or the church, is not easy to determine; some think they are the words of the church, who had hitherto been relating what Christ said to her, and who, having neglected her vineyard, Song 1:6; and now stirred up by Christ to a greater care of it, expresses her concern for its flourishing; and therefore calls upon her attendants and companions, to assist in taking and destroying those which were harmful to it: but rather they seem to be the words of Christ continued; since they not only show the care of his vines, the churches; but express power and authority over those they are spoken to: and perhaps they may be the words of them both jointly; since the church, with Christ, and under him, has a right to stir up her officers to do their work, and fulfil their ministry, they have received of Christ for her service. By foxes may be meant false teachers, to whom the false prophets of old were compared, Ezekiel 13:3; foxes are crafty and subtle creatures, malignant and mischievous, hungry and voracious, full of deceit and dissimulation, are of an ill smell, and abominably filthy; so false teachers walk in craftiness, use good words and fair speeches, and thereby deceive the hearts of the simple; their doctrines are pernicious, their heresies damnable, and they bring destruction on themselves and others; they are hungry after worldly substance, are greedy of it, and can never have enough; devour widows' houses, and make merchandise of men, to enrich themselves; they put on sheep's clothing, transform themselves into angels of light, mimic the voice of Gospel ministers, use their phrases and expressions, that they may not be easily discovered; and are abominable in their principles and practices, and to be shunned by all good men. Now ministers of the Gospel are ordered to take these, to detect them, and refute their errors, and reprove them sharply for them; and, after proper steps taken, to reject them, to cast them out of the vineyards, the churches, and keep them out. Even
the little foxes; heresies and heretics are to be nipped in the bud, before they increase to more ungodliness; otherwise errors, which may seem small at first, soon grow larger and spread themselves, and become fatal to the churches:
that spoil the vines; as foxes do, by gnawing the branches, biting the bark, making bare the roots, devouring the ripe grapes, and infecting all with their noxious teeth and vicious breath (x): so false teachers make divisions and schisms in churches; disturb their peace; unsettle some, and subvert others; sap the foundation of religion, and corrupt the word of God; and therefore by all means to be taken, and the sooner the better;
for our vines have tender grapes: or "flowers"; See Gill on Song 2:13. The "vines" are the churches; the "tender grapes", or "flowers", young converts, which Christ has a particular regard unto, Isaiah 40:11; and these, having but a small degree of knowledge, are more easily imposed upon and seduced by false teachers; and therefore, for their sakes, should be carefully watched, and vigorously opposed, since otherwise a promising vintage is in danger of being spoiled. Christ, in this address, intimates, that not only he and the church, but, he ministers also, had an interest in the vines and tender grapes, as they have; see Song 8:11; and therefore should be the more concerned for their welfare; hence he calls them "ours"; interest carries a powerful argument in it.
(x) Vid. Theocrit. Idyll. 1. v. 48, 49. & Idyll. 5. v. 112, 113. So soldiers are compared to foxes, because they eat the grapes in the countries they come into, Aristoph. Equites, Acts 3. Sc. 1. p. 350.

Transition to the vineyard, often formed in "stairs" (Song 2:14), or terraces, in which, amidst the vine leaves, foxes hid.
foxes--generic term, including jackals. They eat only grapes, not the vine flowers; but they need to be driven out in time before the grape is ripe. She had failed in watchfulness before (Song 1:6); now when converted, she is the more jealous of subtle sins (Psalm 139:23). In spiritual winter certain evils are frozen up, as well as good; in the spring of revivals these start up unperceived, crafty, false teachers, spiritual pride, uncharitableness, &c. (Psalm 19:12; Matthew 13:26; Luke 8:14; 2-Timothy 2:17; Hebrews 12:15). "Little" sins are parents of the greatest (Ecclesiastes 10:1; 1-Corinthians 5:6). Historically, John the Baptist spared not the fox-like Herod (Luke 13:32), who gave vine-like promise of fruit at first (Mark 6:20), at the cost of his life; nor the viper-Sadducees, &c.; nor the varied subtle forms of sin (Luke 3:7-14).

There now follows a cantiuncula. Shulamith comes forward, and, singing, salutes her beloved. Their love shall celebrate a new spring. Thus she wishes everything removed, or rendered harmless, that would disturb the peace of this love:
15 Catch us the foxes, the little foxes,
The spoilers of the vineyards;
For our vineyards are in bloom!
16 My beloved is mine, and I am his;
Who feeds his flock among the lilies.
If the king is now, on this visit of the beloved, engaged in hunting, the call: "Catch us," etc., if it is directed at all to any definite persons, is addressed to those who follow him. But this is a vine-dresser's ditty, in accord with Shulamith's experience as the keeper of a vineyard, which, in a figure, aims at her love-relation. The vineyards, beautiful with fragrant blossom, point to her covenant of love; and the foxes, the little foxes, which might destroy these united vineyards, point to all the great and little enemies and adverse circumstances which threaten to gnaw and destroy love in the blossom, ere it has reached the ripeness of full enjoyment. שׁעלים comprehends both foxes and jackals, which "destroy or injure the vineyards; because, by their holes and passages which they form in the ground, loosening the soil, so that the growth and prosperity of the vine suffers injury" (Hitzig). This word is from שׁעל (R. של), to go down, or into the depth. The little foxes are perhaps the jackals, which are called tǎnnīm, from their extended form, and in height are seldom more than fifteen inches. The word "jackal" has nothing to do with שׁוּעל, but is the Persian-Turkish shaghal, which comes from the Sanscr. crgâla, the howler (R. krag, like kap-âla, the skull; R. kap, to be arched). Moreover, the mention of the foxes naturally follows 14a, for they are at home among rocky ravines. Hitzig supposes Shulamith to address the foxes: hold for us = wait, ye rascals! But אחז, Aram. אחד, does not signify to wait, but to seize or lay hold of (synon. לכד, Judges 15:4), as the lion its prey, Isaiah 5:29. And the plur. of address is explained from its being made to the king's retinue, or to all who could and would give help. Fox-hunting is still, and has been from old times, a sport of rich landowners; and that the smaller landowners also sought to free themselves from them by means of snares or otherwise, is a matter of course, - they are proverbially as destroyers, Nehemiah. 3:35 [4:3], and therefore a figure of the false prophets, Ezekiel 13:4. מחבּ כּרם are here instead of מחבּלי הכּרם. The articles are generally omitted, because poetry is not fond of the article, where, as here (cf. on the other hand, Song 1:6), the thoughts and language permit it; and the fivefold m is an intentional mere verborum sonus. The clause וּכר סמדר is an explanatory one, as appears from the Vav and the subj. preceding, as well as from the want of a finitum. סמדר maintains here also, in pausa, the sharpening of the final syllable, as חץ, Deuteronomy 28:42.
The 16th verse is connected with the 15th. Shulamith, in the pentast. song, celebrates her love-relation; for the praise of it extends into Song 2:15, is continued in Song 2:16, and not till Song 2:17 does she address her beloved. Luther translates:
My beloved is mine, and I am his;
He feeds (his flock) among the roses.
He has here also changed the "lilies" of the Vulgate into "roses;" for of the two queens among the flowers, he gave the preference to the popular and common rose; besides, he rightly does not translate הרעה, in the mid. after the pascitur inter lilia of the Vulgate: who feeds himself, i.e., pleases himself; for רעה has this meaning only when the object expressly follows, and it is evident that בּשּׁו cannot possibly be this object, after Genesis 37:2, - the object is thus to be supplied. And which? Without doubt, gregem; and if Heiligst., with the advocates of the shepherd-hypothesis, understands this feeding (of the flock) among the lilies, of feeding on a flowery meadow, nothing can be said against it. But at Song 6:2., where this saying of Shulamith is repeated, she says that her beloved בּגּנּים feeds and gathers lilies. On this the literal interpretation of the qui pascit (gregem) inter lilia is wrecked; for a shepherd, such as the shepherd-hypothesis supposes, were he to feed his flock in a garden, would be nothing better than a thief; such shepherds, also, do not concern themselves with the plucking of flowers, but spend their time in knitting stockings. It is Solomon, the king, of whom Shulamith speaks. She represents him to herself as a shepherd; but in such a manner that, at the same time, she describes his actions in language which rises above ordinary shepherd-life, and, so to speak, idealizes. She, who was herself a shepherdess, knows from her own circle of thought nothing more lovely or more honourable to conceive and to say of him, than that he is a shepherd who feeds among lilies. The locality and the surroundings of his daily work correspond to his nature, which is altogether beauty and love. Lilies, the emblem of unapproachable highness, awe-inspiring purity, lofty elevation above what is common, bloom where the lily-like (king) wanders, whom the Lily names her own. The mystic interpretation and mode of speaking takes "lilies" as the figurative name of holy souls, and a lily-stalk as the symbol of the life of regeneration. Mary, who is celebrated in song as the rosa mystica, is rightly represented in ancient pictures with a lily in her hand on the occasion of the Annunciation; for if the people of God are called by Jewish poets "a people of lilies," she is, within this lily-community, this communio sanctorum, the lily without a parallel.

Take us - The bridegroom gives this charge to his bridemen or friends. By whom he understands those magistrates and ministers to whom, under Christ, the custody of the vineyards, the churches, principally belong. These he commands to take the foxes, to restrain them from doing this mischief. Foxes - The disturbers of the vineyard, or the church, seducers or false teachers. Little foxes - This he adds for more abundant caution, to teach the church to prevent errors and heresies in the beginnings. Spoil vines - Which foxes do many ways, by gnawing and breaking the little branches and leaves, by digging holes in the vineyards, and so spoiling the roots. Tender grapes - Which are easily spoiled, if great care be not used to prevent it.