Investigation: The Daughters of Jerusalem and the Watchmen

"The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me" (5:7).

The daughters of Jerusalem

They are addressed in 1:5; 2:7; 3:5, 10–11; 5:8, 16; 8:4, and speak in 5:9 and 6:1. They function as a chorus and as the woman's peers: she confides in them, instructs them ("do not awaken love"), and enlists them. They give the poem a community of women.

Public affection

"O that thou wert as my brother… when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised" (8:1). Public displays between lovers were shameful; between siblings they were not. Ancient Near Eastern law and custom guarded women's sexuality closely (Deuteronomy 22:13–29). The woman's searches at night (3:1–4; 5:6–7) cross a boundary that could expose her to suspicion.

Reading 5:7 responsibly

Interpreters have called the scene a nightmare, a symbolic portrayal of social disapproval, or a realistic description. Allegorical readings made the watchmen teachers or angels who "wound" the soul for its good. Any reading should first acknowledge what the text says: armed men beat a woman and stripped her. The Song does not say she deserved it, and nothing in it presents the watchmen as right. The scene is part of the poem's honesty about the risks of love in a watched society (S-C08).

Two night searches compared

3:1–5 and 5:2–8 tell similar stories with different outcomes. In both the woman is in bed at night, seeks her beloved, goes into the city and meets the watchmen. In chapter 3 she asks them and passes on, finds him and brings him home. In chapter 5 she has missed him; the watchmen beat her and take her wrap; she ends lovesick, appealing to the daughters. The second scene escalates the risk of the first.

Women at night in biblical stories

Other biblical narratives show the danger and suspicion a woman faced alone at night: the woman of Proverbs 7 who goes out at dusk "with the attire of an harlot"; Ruth at the threshing floor, where Boaz says "let it not be known that a woman came into the floor" (Ruth 3:14); the Levite's concubine in Judges 19. The Song's woman crosses into this space for love, and the poem lets readers see both her courage and what it cost.

The daughters as a chorus

The daughters of Jerusalem behave somewhat like a chorus in Greek drama: addressed, questioned, answering (5:9; 6:1), joining the search. They give the woman an audience of peers and allow the poem to turn private feeling into shared speech. Unlike a chorus, they never judge her.