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Journey of a Passage

Song of Songs 8:13–14

The open ending: "Make haste, my beloved"

"Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices." The book ends not with a wedding or a summary but with desire in motion, echoing 2:14 and 2:17.

Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning

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 this verse · ▢ 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).

    Quæ habitas in hortis, amici auscultant; fac me audire vocem tuam. Fuge, dilecte mi, et assimilare capreæ, hinnuloque cervorum super montes aromatum.

    Latin numbering: Song 8:13–14. 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.

    הַיוֹשֶׁ֣בֶת בַּגַּנִּ֗ים חֲבֵרִ֛ים מַקְשִׁיבִ֥ים לְקוֹלֵ֖ךְ הַשְׁמִיעִֽינִי׃ בְּרַ֣ח ׀ דּוֹדִ֗י וּֽדְמֵה־לְךָ֤ לִצְבִי֙ א֚וֹ לְעֹ֣פֶר הָֽאַיָּלִ֔ים עַ֖ל הָרֵ֥י בְשָׂמִֽים׃ 117 8 4 4

    Flee, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices (v. 14)

    Hebrew numbering: Song 8:13–14.

  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).

    Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

  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.

    O toi qui demeures dans les jardins, mes compagnes écoutent ta voix; fais-la-moi entendre. Fuis, mon frère bien-aimé; et, rapide comme le chevreuil ou comme le faon de la biche, fuis dans les montagnes des parfums.

    Greek (digital file) numbering: Song 8:13–14. 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

The man asks to hear her voice (compare 2:14); she answers, as at the start, with an invitation.

Berach ("flee, make haste"): away from the companions, or toward the mountains of spices (her body?) — the ambiguity is the ending.

Christian readers heard in the open ending the church's longing for Christ's return (Revelation 22:17, 20); Jewish readers, Israel's longing for redemption. The poem itself simply stops in the middle of love.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe Song ends without narrative closure.
  • Independently documented8:14 echoes 2:17.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Song of Songs 8: Love Is Strong as Death →She wishes he were like a brother so she could kiss him in public without scorn, and bring him to her mother's house (8:1–2); the embrace and the refrain return (vv. 3–4). "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?"; she awakened him under the apple tree where his mother bore him (v. 5). Then the summit of the book: "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. Many waters cannot quench love… if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned" (vv. 6–7). Brothers discuss their little sister; she answers that she is a wall and has found peace (vv. 8–10). Solomon's vineyard at Baal-hamon is let out for a thousand pieces of silver; "my vineyard, which is mine, is before me" (vv. 11–12). The book ends: "Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices" (vv. 13–14).
    • Investigation: One Drama or Many Songs? →Is the Song a single story with a plot (meeting, courtship, wedding, union), a drama with a hero and a rival, songs from a wedding week, or a collection of separate love poems? Each theory has been influential. The Hebrew gives no speaker names, scene markers or narrator; refrains and repeated images suggest design; abrupt shifts suggest collection.
    • How Song of Songs Came to Us →The Song grew from a world of love songs shared across the ancient Near East; it was shaped into a Hebrew poetic sequence under Solomon's name (date debated, most likely in its present form during the Persian or early Hellenistic period); it was copied at Qumran (four manuscripts), translated literally into Greek, then into Latin, Syriac and Aramaic; defended as holy by Rabbi Akiva; read as divine love by Jews and Christians for most of its history; preserved by the Masoretes; and studied today as both poetry and Scripture.