*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine,.... Expressive of interest in Christ, and union to him, and of her faith therein; which still continued, notwithstanding her unbecoming behavior toward Christ, and her many infirmities, Song 5:2. Aben Ezra connects the words with the preceding, "my beloved is gone", &c. but though he is, and I am left alone, I know I am his, and he is mine; which throws a beauty upon the words, and declares the excellency and strength of her faith; for herein lies the glory and excellency of faith, to believe in an unseen Christ: though it may be the Shechinah was with her, as the Targum has it; or Christ had now appeared to her, and was found by her, and therefore, like Thomas, says, "my Lord and my God";
he feedeth among the lilies; See Gill on Song 2:16.
In speaking of Jesus Christ to others, she regains her own assurance. Literally, "I am for my beloved . . . for me." Reverse order from Song 2:16. She now, after the season of darkness, grounds her convictions on His love towards her, more than on hers towards Him (Deuteronomy 33:3). There, it was the young believer concluding that she was His, from the sensible assurance that He was hers.
3 I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine,
Who feeds among the lilies,
Shulamith farther proceeds, followed by the daughters of Jerusalem, to seek her friend lost through her own fault. She always says, not אישׁי, but דּודי and רעי; for love, although a passion common to mind and body, is in this Song of Songs viewed as much as possible apart from its basis in the animal nature. Also, that the description hovers between that of the clothed and the unclothed, gives to it an ideality favourable to the mystical interpretation. Nakedness is ערוה. But at the cross nakedness appears transported from the sphere of sense to that of the supersensuous.
*More commentary available at chapter level.