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Journey of a Passage

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."

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. The poem as first composedUnknown (proposals from the 10th to the 3rd century BC)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The poem as first composed
Greek
  1. Greek Song of Songs (library: Giguet's French)Greek translation 1st century BC – 1st century AD (debated); French 1872Translated from the Greek Song (Asma)
Latin
  1. Latin Vulgate (Clementine)Jerome c. AD 390s, from Hebrew; edition 1592Translated from the Hebrew text Jerome used
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Unknown (proposals from the 10th to the 3rd century BC)

    The poem as first composed

    – No copy survives

    No original survives. The oldest Hebrew copies of the Song are four Qumran manuscripts: 4Q106, 4Q107, 4Q108 (Cave 4) and 6Q6 (Cave 6), late 1st century BC to 1st century AD (reported).

  2. Jerome c. AD 390s, from Hebrew; edition 1592

    Latin Vulgate (Clementine)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Hebrew text Jerome used

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    Introduxit me in cellam vinariam; ordinavit in me caritatem. Fulcite me floribus, stipate me malis, quia amore langueo. Læva ejus sub capite meo, et dextera illius amplexabitur me. Adjuro vos, filiæ Jerusalem, per capreas cervosque camporum, ne suscitetis, neque evigilare faciatis dilectam, quoadusque ipsa velit.

    Latin numbering: Song 2:4–7. Jerome translated the Song from Hebrew (c. AD 390s); the Clementine edition prints the title outside the verses and joins English 1:1-2.

  3. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The poem as first composed

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    הֱבִיאַ֙נִי֙ אֶל־בֵּ֣ית הַיָּ֔יִן וְדִגְל֥וֹ עָלַ֖י אַהֲבָֽה׃ סַמְּכ֙וּנִי֙ בָּֽאֲשִׁישׁ֔וֹת רַפְּד֖וּנִי בַּתַּפּוּחִ֑ים כִּי־חוֹלַ֥ת אַהֲבָ֖ה אָֽנִי׃ שְׂמֹאלוֹ֙ תַּ֣חַת לְרֹאשִׁ֔י וִימִינ֖וֹ תְּחַבְּקֵֽנִי׃ הִשְׁבַּ֨עְתִּי אֶתְכֶ֜ם בְּנ֤וֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַ֙ם֙ בִּצְבָא֔וֹת א֖וֹ בְּאַיְל֣וֹת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה אִם־תָּעִ֧ירוּ ׀ וְֽאִם־תְּעֽוֹרְר֛וּ אֶת־הָאַהֲבָ֖ה עַ֥ד שֶׁתֶּחְפָּֽץ׃

    I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field: do not stir up, do not awaken love until it pleases (v. 7)

    Hebrew numbering: Song 2:4–7.

  4. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

  5. Greek translation 1st century BC – 1st century AD (debated); French 1872

    Greek Song of Songs (library: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Greek Song (Asma)

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    Introduisez-moi dans le cellier au vin; faites-y venir ma bien-aimée. Soutenez-moi avec des parfums; entourez-moi de fruits, car je suis blessée d’amour. Sa main gauche sera sous ma tête, et de sa droite il m’embrassera. Filles de Jérusalem, je vous adjure, par les puissances et les vertus de la campagne, n’éveillez pas, ne réveillez pas ma bien-aimée, qu’elle-même ne le désire.

    Greek (digital file) numbering: Song 2:4–7. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check). Giguet also inserts speaker labels such as (Épouse) and (Époux); these are interpretation, not Greek text. A C check needs a critical Greek edition.

What changed, and why

Degel (v. 4), "banner," may mean a military standard, an intention, or (from Akkadian) a gaze: "his look upon me was love." The Vulgate's ordinavit in me caritatem ("he set charity in order in me") inspired Augustine's and medieval ideas of the ordo amoris, the right ordering of loves.

The oath by animals in place of God's names is widely seen as deliberate: reverent avoidance or playful substitution. The Greek "powers" preserves the divine-sounding reading of tseva'ot.

The refrain's object is "love" (ha-ahavah), abstract; the KJV and Vulgate make it a sleeping person. The rabbis (Ketubot 110b–111a) derived from it oaths that Israel should not "force the end" of exile.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe library's Greek reads "powers and forces" for "gazelles and hinds."
  • Plausible, not confirmedThe animal oath substitutes for divine names.
  • Strongly supportedThe Vulgate of 2:4 shaped the medieval idea of ordered love.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Song of Songs 2: The Voice of My Beloved →The woman calls herself "the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys" (2:1); he answers, "As the lily among thorns, so is my love" (v. 2); she replies that he is like an apple tree among the trees of the wood (v. 3). He brings her to the "banqueting house" (literally "house of wine"); she is faint with love; she charges the daughters of Jerusalem "by the roes, and by the hinds of the field" not to stir up love until it pleases (vv. 4–7). Her beloved comes leaping over the hills and calls her out: "the winter is past… the time of the singing of birds is come" (vv. 8–13). He longs to see her face and hear her voice (v. 14); someone calls, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines" (v. 15). She declares, "My beloved is mine, and I am his" (v. 16), and sends him off until day breaks (v. 17).
    • Investigation: The Greek Song and Its Translators →The Greek Song (Asma asmaton) is a close, word-for-word translation. Its differences from the Masoretic Text are usually differences of reading the same consonants ("your breasts" for "your love"), of translating names as words (Tirzah as "good pleasure"), or of interpretation. Later Greek versions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) survive in fragments. This investigation lists the main differences found in the library's Greek and explains what kind each is.
    • Investigation: Love Stronger Than Death →"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." These verses are the Song's summit. They also contain its most debated word: shalhevetyah, which may be "a flame of Yah (the LORD)" or simply "a mighty flame." This investigation examines the grammar, the manuscripts, the translations and the imagery of death, Sheol, flame and flood.