Devotional Song of Solomon 5:2

Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim:

Song of Solomon 5:2: “I sleep but my heart waketh, it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying: Open to me my sister, my  love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops of night.”

I once had a rabbi tell me that the Song of Solomon was the most difficult book to translate. He explained that when translating the Song of Solomon, you just can not do a word by word rendering into English. Not only must you feel the emotional behind each word but you must recognize that the language between two lovers can be very esoteric.

A man and woman may refer to each other as “sweetheart.”  Someone translating that into another language may render this as “a heart of candy.”  They might say: “You have a heart of sugar.”  A man can call a woman his “little filly.”  A translator may render this as: “He says you are a little horse.”

Yesterday I looked at the words “My love” which has the same words in Hebrew that this verse has for “My Love” which is a play on the word for evil.  Now he could be just playfully calling her “evil” because she is a big distraction or he may not be playing at all and it really calling her his “consuming passion.“  I don’t think it matters which, what matters is to know that she has captured his full attention.

I would like to look at the words “my sister.”  In the midst of such declarations of love he calls his beloved “his sister.”  Now I know commentators, preachers and teacher have all explained this as saying that to use this term puts her on equal footing, or expresses a special closeness, etc.  No one, however, seems to consider the fact in the 7^th century AD, the Masoretes put a holem after the Chet in the word “’achoti” making the root word “’ach” which is the word for sister.  The Masoretes were not inspired or “God breathed.” Suppose they left out that holem?  Then you would have the root word as “’achach.”   An “’achach” is something that makes you warm or hot. It is the word for a fire-pot used to warm a room. I know what you’re thinking, he is saying; “You’re really one hot…”  But I will not go that far.  Neither will I go as far as to say he is calling her a radiator.  After all that is a modern idiom.  Still what is the origin of calling a woman, “hot?”  When a man finds himself strongly attracted to a woman, his heart beats faster, his blood flows quicker and he grows warm. The woman is hot because just getting near her makes him hot, like a radiator.  However, calling you’re beloved a radiator, may not achieve it’s desired effect.  So what is this young woman hearing when he calls her an “achach.”  Maybe she hears him calling her a firebrand, or one who brings him warmth or comfort.  Maybe she is hearing him say that she makes his heart beat faster and his blood run quicker.  Is it really important to find an English word?   Isn’t it enough to consider that God is saying to us: “When you are near you make my heart beat faster, my blood flow quicker.”  Or maybe he is saying that “When you are near you make me feel warm and comforted.”

I wonder if the reason translators hesitate to use words of endearment as used between two lovers because they just are not comfortable with the idea that we can have such an effect on God.  Yet, if God is indeed using the Song of Solomon to describe his love for us, then we just have to sit back and face the fact that we can cause his heart to beat rapidly.  OK, God does not have a physical heart pumping blood through his body, He doesn’t even have a body.  Yet, the emotion, the desire, the longing  and the love is all there.

The Bible is filled with pictures of God delighting in us, rejoicing over us.   We are just as important to him as a lover is to his beloved.   He longs to just hear our voice, but we get so busy we forget to pray.  He is reaching out to touch us, but we are too busy playing our little games with Him.  We are His little dove that wants to hold and speak gently to, but we just struggle and keep trying to fly away.

He stands at our door knocking, his head filled with dew and his locks with drops of the night.  I was reading the works of some mystical rabbis some time ago and I recall how they used an idiomatic expression to describe one who is ready for intimacy.  The expression is “to have his head filled with dew and his hair dropping the drops of the night.”

Jesus stands at the door knocking (Revelation 3:20). He is longing and ready to enter into an intimacy with us, just as much as Solomon was ready to be intimate with his beloved in Song of Solomon 5:2.