13 His cheeks are like a bed of spices with towers of perfumes. His lips are like lilies, dropping liquid myrrh.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Sweet flowers - Better as in the margin, i. e., plants with fragrant leaves and flowers trained on trellis-work.
Like lilies - Are lilies dropping liquid myrrh (see the Song 5:5 note). Perhaps the fragrance of the flowers, or the delicate curl of the lip-like petals, is here the point of comparison, rather than the color.
His cheeks are as a bed of spices - Possibly meaning a bed in the garden, where odoriferous herbs grew. But it has been supposed to refer to his beard, which in a young well-made man is exceedingly beautiful. I have seen young Turks, who had taken much care of their beards, mustachios, etc., look majestic. Scarcely any thing serves to set off the human face to greater advantage than the beard, when kept in proper order. Females admire it in their suitors and husbands. I have known cases, where they not only despised but execrated Europeans, whose faces were close shaved. The men perfume their beards often; and this may be what is intended by spices and sweet-smelling myrrh.
His lips like lilies - The שושנם shoshannim may mean any flower of the lily kind, such as the rubens lilium, mentioned by Pliny, or something of the tulip kind. There are tints in such flowers that bear a very near resemblance to a fine ruby lip.
His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers,.... Which may intend the presence of Christ with his people in his word and ordinances; often called his "face", which he shows, and they seek after, than which nothing is more desirable; walking in the light of his countenance is preferable to walking among spicy beds, where fragrant plants and odoriferous flowers grow: or the cheeks, being the seat of modesty and blushing, may denote the great humility of Christ, seen in his assumption of our nature, throughout the whole course of his life, and especially at his death, and which renders him very delightful to his people; how lovely does the meek and lowly Jesus look! how beautiful are those blushing cheeks of his, who, being equal with God, took upon him the form of a servant! The cheeks may intend not bare cheeks, but with the hair growing upon them, the hair of the beard; which puts forth itself, and grows upon the cheeks or "jaws" (o), as it may be rendered, which makes a man look graceful and majestic; so Aben Ezra interprets the word of the beard, and so many Christian (p) interpreters, which puts out like aromatic plants on spicy beds. This was literally true of Christ, who was a grown man when he suffered, and gave his cheeks to the smiters, and who plucked off the hair of his beard: and in a mystical sense it may intend either believers in Christ, who are the hair of his cheeks, as well as of his head; and who, like spicy beds and fragrant flowers, are odoriferous to Christ and to one another; or "as towers of perfumes" (q) as some, which ascend upwards in the exercise of faith, hope, and love: or rather the graces of the Spirit in Christ, as man and Mediator; which, like the hair of the beard, are in Christ, in great numbers, without measure, and make him very lovely and graceful; and are like beds of spices and sweet flowers, for the variety and sweet smelling savour of them. Though it seems, best of all, to be expressive of the manliness, courage, prudence, gravity, and majesty of Christ; of which the beard, thick set and well grown, is an indication; all which appeared in the whole conduct and deportment of Christ among men; in his ministry, in his life and conversation, at his apprehension, arraignment, condemnation, sufferings, and death. The cheeks rising, and being a little elevated, are fitly described by beds in a garden, by "towers of perfumes", or fragrant flowers and fruit trees, reared up in the form of towers, or pyramids; or by a dish of fruit preserves, placed in such a figure: and the hair of the cheeks, or beard, are aptly represented by spices, rising up from a bed of them; and all denote the beauty, savour, and majesty of Christ. Or, as the Vulgate Latin version, "as beds of spices set by confectioners"; not as aromatic plants, set in rows by the gardener; but the spices themselves, set in rows by the confectioner in vessels (r), placed in his shop in rows to be sold; which being of various colours, especially white and red, the cheeks, for colour and eminence, are compared unto them;
his lips like lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrh; by which are meant the words of Christ, which drop from his lips; which are like lilies, for their purity, thinness, and beautiful colour: the words of Christ are pure words, free from all pollution, deceit, and human mixtures; nor are his lips big with his own praises, but with expressions of regard for his Father's glory; and are very pleasant, gracious, and graceful. But then the comparison is not between them and white lilies, for not white, but red lips, are accounted the most beautiful; see Song 4:3; wherefore rather red or purple lilies are respected, such as Pliny (s), and other writers (t), speak of; such as grew in Syria (u), a neighbouring country; and also in Egypt (w) grew lilies like to roses. Some (x) think the allusion is to crowns, made of red or purple lilies, wore at nuptial festivals, on which were poured oil of myrrh, and so dropped from them; but the phrase, "dropping sweet smelling myrrh", is not in construction with "lilies", but with "lips": signifying, that the lips or words of Christ were like to lilies; not so much or not only for their thinness and colour, as for the sweet smell of them, very odorous, grateful, and acceptable; as are the doctrines of peace, pardon, righteousness, life, and salvation, to sensible souls, delivered in the ministry of the word: the manner of which delivery of them is expressed by "dropping"; gradually, by little and little, as Christ's church and people can bear them; seasonably, and at proper times, as their wants require constantly, as while Christ was here or, earth, so now he is in heaven, by his ministers, in all ages, to the end of the world; and yet sweetly and gently refreshing, and making fruitful; see Deuteronomy 32:2. Moreover, the kisses of Christ's lips, or the manifestations of his love, may be taken into the sense of this clause; which together with the grateful matter and graceful manner of his words, render him very acceptable to his church; see Song 1:2; and such a sentiment is expressed, in much the same language, by others (y).
(o) "maxillae ejus", Pagninus, Montanus, Marckius, Michaelis. (p) Sanctius, Cocceius, Ainsworth, Marckius, Michaelis. (q) "turribus pigmentorum", Marckius; "condimentorum", Schmidt, Michaelis. (r) Vid. Fortunat. Scacchi Eleochrys. Sacr. l. 1. c. 18. p. 90. (s) Nat. Hist. l. 21. c. 5. (t) Theophrast. apud Athenaei Deipnosophist. l. 15. c. 8. p. 681. Maimon. in Misn. Sheviith, c. 7. s. 6. & Alshech in loc. Midrash Esther, s. 4. fol. 91. 1. (u) Dioscorides, l. 1. c. 163. Apud Fortunat. Scacch. ut supra, (Eleochrys. Sacr.) l. 1. c. 27. p. 134. (w) Herodot. Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 92. (x) Scacch. ibid. l. 1. c. 28. p. 138, 139. (y) "Olent tua basia myrrham", Martial. Epigr. l. 2. Ep. 10.
cheeks--the seat of beauty, according to the Hebrew meaning [GESENIUS]. Yet men smote and spat on them (Isaiah 50:6).
bed--full, like the raised surface of the garden bed; fragrant with ointments, as beds with aromatic plants (literally, "balsam").
sweet flowers--rather, "terraces of aromatic herbs"--"high-raised parterres of sweet plants," in parallelism to "bed," which comes from a Hebrew root, meaning "elevation."
lips-- (Psalm 45:2; John 7:46).
lilies--red lilies. Soft and gentle (1-Peter 2:22-23). How different lips were man's (Psalm 22:7)!
dropping . . . myrrh--namely, His lips, just as the sweet dewdrops which hang in the calyx of the lily.
13a His cheeks like a bed of sweet herbs,
Towers of spicy plants.
A flower-bed is called ערוּגה, from ערג, to be oblique, inclined. His cheeks are like such a soft raised bed, and the impression their appearance makes is like the fragrance which flows from such a bed planted with sweet-scented flowers. Migedaloth are the tower-like or pyramidal mounds, and merkahhim are the plants used in spicery. The point of comparison here is thus the soft elevation; perhaps with reference to the mingling of colours, but the word chosen (merkahhim) rather refers to the lovely, attractive, heart-refreshing character of the impression. The Venet., keeping close to the existing text: αἱ σιαγόνες αὐτοῦ ὡς πρασιὰ τοῦ ἀρώματος πύργοι ἀρωματισμῶν (thus not a̓ρωματιστῶν] according to Gebhardt's just conjecture). But is the punctuation here correct? The sing. כערוגת is explained from this, that the bed is presented as sloping from its height downward on two parallel sides; but the height would then be the nose dividing the face, and the plur. would thus be more suitable; and the lxx, Symm., and other ancient translators have, in fact, read כערוגת. But still less is the phrase migdeloth merkahhim to be comprehended; for a tower, however diminutive it may be, it not a proper figure for a soft elevation, nor even a graduated flowery walk, or a terraced flowery hill, - a tower always presents, however round one may conceive it, too much the idea of a natural chubbiness, or of a diseased tumour. Therefore the expression used by the lxx, φύουσαι μυρεψικά, i.e., מרק' מהדּלות, commends itself. Thus also Jerome: sicut areolae aromatum consitae a pigmentariis, and the Targ. (which refers לחיים allegorically to the לוּחי of the law, and merkahhim to the refinements of the Halacha): "like the rows of a garden of aromatic plants which produce (gignentes) deep, penetrating sciences, even as a (magnificent) garden, aromatic plants." Since we read מגדּלות כערוגת, we do not refer migadloth, as Hitzig, who retains כערוגת, to the cheeks, although their name, like that of the other members (e.g., the ear, hand, foot), may be fem. (Bttch. 649), but to the beds of spices; but in this carrying forward of the figure we find, as he does, a reference to the beard and down on the cheeks. גּדּל is used of suffering the hair to grow, Numbers 6:5, as well as of cultivating plants; and it is a similar figure when Pindar, Nem. v. 11, compares the milk-hair of a young man to the fine woolly down of the expanding vine-leaves (vid., Passow). In merkahhim there scarcely lies anything further than that this flos juventae on the blooming cheeks gives the impression of the young shoots of aromatic plants; at all events, the merkahhim, even although we refer this feature in the figure to the fragrance of the unguents on the beard, are not the perfumes themselves, to which megadloth is not appropriate, but fragrant plants, so that in the first instance the growth of the beard is in view with the impression of its natural beauty.
13b His lips lilies,
Dropping with liquid myrrh.
Lilies, viz., red lilies (vid., under Song 2:1), unless the point of comparison is merely loveliness associated with dignity. She thinks of the lips as speaking. All that comes forth from them, the breath in itself, and the breath formed into words, is עבר מור, most precious myrrh, viz., such as of itself wells forth from the bark of the balsamodendron. עבר, the running over of the eyes (cf. myrrha in lacrimis, the most highly esteemed sort, as distinguished from myrrha in granis), with which Dillmann combines the Aethiop. name for myrrh, karbê (vid., under Song _Num 5:5).
Cheeks - His face or countenance, an eminent part whereof is the cheeks. Spices - Of aromatic flowers which delight both the eye with a pleasant prospect, and the smell with their fragrancy. Lillies - Beautiful and pleasant.
*More commentary available at chapter level.