Song of Songs 6:13 (Hebrew 7:1)
"Return, O Shulamite": a chapter boundary and a name
"Return, return, O Shulamite… What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies." Hebrew Bibles number this verse 7:1; the Greek and Latin split it, putting "What will ye see in the Shulamite?" at the start of their 7:1. The name occurs only here; its meaning (woman of Shunem? Solomon's counterpart? "the perfect one"?) is debated. Mechollat ha-machanayim may be "the dance of the two camps" or "of Mahanaim."
Read Song of Songs 6:13 (Hebrew 7:1) in every edition
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
Every witness, in order
Unknown (proposals from the 10th to the 3rd century BC)
The poem as first composed
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).
Jerome c. AD 390s, from Hebrew; edition 1592
Latin Vulgate (Clementine)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
Revertere, revertere, Sulamitis! revertere, revertere ut intueamur te.
Latin numbering: Song 6:12. Jerome translated the Song from Hebrew (c. AD 390s); the Clementine edition prints the title outside the verses and joins English 1:1-2.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
שׁ֤וּבִי שׁ֙וּבִי֙ הַשּׁ֣וּלַמִּ֔ית שׁ֥וּבִי שׁ֖וּבִי וְנֶחֱזֶה־בָּ֑ךְ מַֽה־תֶּחֱזוּ֙ בַּשּׁ֣וּלַמִּ֔ית כִּמְחֹלַ֖ת הַֽמַּחֲנָֽיִם׃
Turn, turn, O Shulammite; turn, turn, that we may gaze at you. What would you see in the Shulammite? Like the dance of the two camps (Mahanaim).
Hebrew numbering: Song 7:1. Hebrew numbering 7:1.
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.
Greek translation 1st century BC – 1st century AD (debated); French 1872
Greek Song of Songs (library: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
Reviens, reviens, ma Sulamite; reviens, reviens, et nous ne verrons que toi.
Greek (digital file) numbering: Song 6:12. 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
Numbering: English 6:13 = Hebrew 7:1; English 7:1–13 = Hebrew 7:2–14. In Greek and Latin the line is split across their 6:12 and 7:1. The site aligns the editions.
Shulammite: see "The Shulammite, Shunem and Solomon." The Atlas marks Shunem as a disputed association.
The KJV's "company of two armies" reads machanayim as a common noun; the Greek "the ranks of an army" (Giguet) and Vulgate "choros castrorum" (dances of the camps) are close.
What the evidence shows
- Hebrew Bibles number English 6:13 as 7:1.
- Greek and Latin split the verse between chapters 6 and 7.
- The Shulammite came from Shunem.
Sources
Related lessons
- Song of Songs 6: Beautiful as Tirzah, Terrible as an Army →The daughters ask where her beloved has gone; she knows: "My beloved is gone down into his garden… I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine" (6:1–3). He praises her: "beautiful… as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners"; her eyes overwhelm him; he repeats the praise of hair, teeth and temples from chapter 4 (vv. 4–7). "There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one"; even queens praise her: "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning?" (vv. 8–10). Someone goes down to the nut orchard to see the blossoms, and then a famously obscure line about "the chariots of Amminadib" (vv. 11–12). "Return, return, O Shulamite… What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies" (v. 13; Hebrew 7:1).
- Song of Songs 7: I Am My Beloved's →In English numbering: the man praises the woman from her sandaled feet upward: thighs like jewels, navel like a bowl of wine, belly like a heap of wheat set about with lilies, breasts like twin fawns, neck like an ivory tower, eyes like the pools of Heshbon, nose like the tower of Lebanon facing Damascus, head like Carmel, hair like purple in which a king is held captive (7:1–5). She is like a palm tree; he will climb it and take hold of its fruit (vv. 6–9). She answers: "I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me" (v. 10), and invites him into the fields and villages, to the vineyards, where "the mandrakes give a smell" and "I will give thee my loves" (vv. 11–13).
- Investigation: The Shulammite, Shunem and Solomon →The woman is called "the Shulammite" once (6:13; Hebrew 7:1), twice in the same verse. The word may mean a woman of Shunem, a feminine form matching Solomon's name, or "the perfect (peaceful) one." This investigation weighs the options and explains why the site marks Shunem on the map only as a disputed association.