Investigation: The Greek Song and Its Translators

Journey of a Passage

• Song of Songs 1:2–4: "Thy love is better than wine": love, or breasts? →The poem's first line in the Masoretic Text: "your love (dodekha) is better than wine," spoken by the woman to the man. The library's Greek and the Vulgate read the same consonants as "your breasts" (daddayikh): "tes mamelles," "ubera tua." The difference is in the vowels, and it changes who is speaking to whom.
• Song of Songs 1:5–6: "Black but comely" or "black and beautiful"? →"I am black ve- comely." The Hebrew conjunction ve- can be "and" or "but"; the library's Greek has "and," the Vulgate and KJV "but." The woman explains her darkness by the sun and her brothers' orders to work in the vineyards; Kedar's black tents and Solomon's curtains are the images.
• Song of Songs 2:4–7: The banner of love and the oath "by the gazelles" →The house of wine, the banner of love, the lovesick woman, the embrace, and the refrain: "I adjure you… by the gazelles (tseva'ot) and the hinds of the field (ayelot ha-sadeh): do not awaken love until it pleases." The animal names sound like divine titles (Tseva'ot, "hosts"; El Shaddai); the library's Greek translates "by the powers and the forces of the field."
• Song of Songs 3:6–11: Solomon's litter: appiryon and "paved with love" →A procession from the wilderness: smoke, myrrh, frankincense; Solomon's couch guarded by sixty warriors; an appiryon of Lebanon wood with silver posts, gold back, purple seat, and an interior "inlaid with love from the daughters of Jerusalem" (v. 10); the king crowned on his wedding day. The library's Greek reads v. 10 as "paved with stones, love from the daughters of Jerusalem."
• Song of Songs 4:8: Lebanon, Amana, Senir and Hermon →"Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse… look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards." Lebanon and Hermon are secure; Senir is Hermon's Amorite name (Deuteronomy 3:9); Amana is uncertain. The library's Greek reads Amana as a word ("faith," amanah); the Vulgate reads tashuri ("look") as "you will be crowned." 4Q106 is reported to lack this verse (its text passes from 4:7 to 6:11).
• Song of Songs 6:4–10: Beautiful as Tirzah, terrible as an army with banners →"Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners." Tirzah was the early capital of the northern kingdom; the library's Greek ("good pleasure") and the Vulgate ("sweet") translate the name by its meaning. Sixty queens, eighty concubines, but "my dove… is but one"; the queens praise her: "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning?"
• Song of Songs 6:11–12: The chariots of Ammi-nadib →One of the most obscure verses in the Bible: "Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib." The Masoretic Text writes two words, ammi-nadiv ("my people, noble" or "my noble kinsman"); the library's Greek and the Vulgate read one name, Aminadab. Modern versions differ widely, and the verse should stay visibly uncertain. 4Q106 is reported to resume at 6:11.
• Song of Songs 7:1–9 (Hebrew 7:2–10): From feet to hair: Heshbon, Damascus, Carmel and the palm →Praise rising from her sandaled feet to her hair; real places as images (the pools of Heshbon, the tower of Lebanon facing Damascus, Carmel); the palm tree and its clusters; and at the end of v. 9 the woman's voice breaking in. The last phrase of v. 9 differs: Hebrew "gliding over the lips of sleepers"; the library's Greek "pleasing to my teeth and my lips."
• Song of Songs 8:5–7: "Love is strong as death": the seal and shalhevetyah →The summit of the Song: "Set me as a seal upon thine heart… for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame (shalhevetyah). Many waters cannot quench love." Shalhevetyah may be "a flame of Yah (the LORD)" or a superlative, "a mighty flame"; the library's Greek and the Vulgate have no divine name; the KJV took the superlative. The word may also have been written as two words in one medieval Masoretic tradition (reported).