*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
How fair and how pleasant - Thou art every way beautiful, and in every respect calculated to inspire pleasure and delight.
How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! These are the words of the King in the galleries, wondering at the church's beauty, it being incomparable and inexpressible, it could not be said well how great it was; and expressing the strength of his love to her, which was invariably the same as ever. Of the "fairness" of the church, and of this title, "love", see Song 1:9; and here she is said also to be "pleasant" to him, as his spouse and bride, in whom he takes infinite delight and pleasure, loving her with a love of complacency and delight; and therefore adds, "for delights", which he had in her before the world was, Proverbs 8:31. She was all delight (g) to him; her words, her actions and gestures, her comely countenance, her sweet and pleasant voice in prayer and praise, her ravishing looks of faith and love, her heavenly airs, and evangelic walk; in all which she appeared beautiful and delightful, beyond all human thought and expression.
(g) "Meae deliciae", Plauti Stichus, Acts. 5. Sc. 5.
Nearer advance of the daughters to the Church (Acts 2:47; Acts 5:13, end). Love to her is the first token of love to Him (1-John 5:1, end).
delights--fascinating charms to them and to the King (Song 7:5; Isaiah 62:4, Hephzi-bah). Hereafter, too (Zephaniah 3:17; Malachi 3:12; Revelation 21:9).
6 How beautiful art thou, and how charming,
O love, among delights!
It is a truth of all-embracing application which is here expressed. There is nothing more admirable than love, i.e., the uniting or mingling together of two lives, the one of which gives itself to the other, and so finds the complement of itself; nor than this self-devotion, which is at the same time self-enrichment. All this is true of earthly love, of which Walther v. d. Vogelweide says: "minne ist sweier herzen wnne" love is the joy of two hearts, and it is true also of heavenly love; the former surpasses all earthly delights (also such as are purely sensuous, Ecclesiastes 2:8), and the latter is, as the apostle expresses himself in his spiritual "Song of Songs," 1-Corinthians 13:13, in relation to faith and hope, "greater than these," greater than both of them, for it is their sacred, eternal aim. In יפית it is indicated that the idea, and in נעמתּ that the eudaemonistic feature of the human soul attains its satisfaction in love. The lxx, obliterating this so true and beautiful a promotion of love above all other joys, translate ἐν ταῖς τρυφαῖς σου (in the enjoyment which thou impartest). The Syr., Jerome, and others also rob the Song of this its point of light and of elevation, by reading אהמה O beloved! instead of אהבה. The words then declare (yet contrary to the spirit of the Hebrew language, which knows neither אהוּמה nor אהוּמתי as vocat.) what we already read at Song 4:10; while, according to the traditional form of the text, they are the prelude of the love-song, to love as such, which is continued in Song 8:6.
Delights - For those various lovely features which, are in thee.
*More commentary available at chapter level.