Song of Solomon 1:10

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible

Comely are thy cheeks, with bead-rows, thy neck, with strings of gems.

Parallel Translations

New Living Translation
How lovely are your cheeks; your earrings set them afire! How lovely is your neck, enhanced by a string of jewels.

Update Bible Version
Your cheeks are comely with plaits [of hair], Your neck with strings of jewels.

New Century Version
Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments, and your neck with jewels.

New English Translation
Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments; your neck is lovely with strings of jewels.

Webster's Bible Translation
Thy cheeks are comely with rows [of jewels], thy neck with chains [of gold].

World English Bible
Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, Your neck with strings of jewels.

Amplified Bible
"Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, Your neck with strings of jewels."

English Standard Version
Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thi chekis ben feire, as of a turtle; thi necke is as brochis.

English Revised Version
Thy cheeks are comely with plaits [of hair], thy neck with strings of jewels

Berean Standard Bible
Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

Contemporary English Version
Earrings add to your beauty, and you wear a necklace of precious stones.

American Standard Version
Thy cheeks are comely with plaits of hair, Thy neck with strings of jewels.

Bible in Basic English
Your face is a delight with rings of hair, your neck with chains of jewels.

Complete Jewish Bible
your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with its strings of beads;

Darby Translation
Thy cheeks are comely with bead-rows, Thy neck with ornamental chains.

Easy-to-Read Version
Your cheeks are so beautiful with those ornaments hanging beside them. Your neck is so lovely under that beautiful string of jewels.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Thy cheeks are comely with circlets, thy neck with beads.

King James Version (1611)
Thy cheekes are comely with rowes of iewels, thy necke with chaines of golde.

New Life Bible
Your face is beautiful with the objects you wear, and your neck with the beautiful chain around it.

New Revised Standard
Your cheeks are comely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Thy cheekes are comely with rowes of stones, and thy necke with chaines.

George Lamsa Translation
Your cheeks are comely with braided hair, and your neck with necklaces.

Good News Translation
Your hair is beautiful upon your cheeks and falls along your neck like jewels.

Douay-Rheims Bible
(1-9) Thy cheeks are beautiful as the turtledove’s, thy neck as jewels.

Revised Standard Version
Your cheeks are comely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Thy cheekes and thy necke is beautifull as the turtles, and hanged with spanges and goodly iewels,

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
How are thy cheeks beautiful as those of a dove, thy neck as chains!

Christian Standard Bible®
Your cheeks are beautiful with jewelry,your neck with its necklace.

Hebrew Names Version
Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, Your neck with strings of jewels.

King James Version
Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.

Lexham English Bible
Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

Literal Translation
Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with chains of beads .

Young's Literal Translation
Comely have been thy cheeks with garlands, Thy neck with chains.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Then shal thy chekes & thy neck be made fayre, & hanged wt spages & goodly iewels:

New American Standard Bible
"Your cheeks are delightful with jewelry, Your neck with strings of beads."

New King James Version
Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, Your neck with chains of gold.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, Your neck with strings of beads."

Legacy Standard Bible
Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments,Your neck with strings of beads."

Contextual Overview

⁷ Tell me, thou loved of my soul! Where wilt thou pasture thy flock? Where wilt thou let them recline at noon? For why should I be as one that wrappeth a veil about her, by the flocks of thy companions? ⁸ HEIf thou know not of thyself, most beautiful among women! get thee forth in the footsteps of the flock, and pasture thy kids by the huts of the shepherds. … ⁹ To a mare of mine, in the chariots of Pharaoh, have I likened thee, my fair one! ¹⁰ Comely are thy cheeks, with bead-rows, thy neck, with strings of gems. ¹¹ THEYRows of golden ornaments, will we make thee, with studs of silver.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

thy cheeks: Genesis 24:22, Genesis 24:47, Isaiah 3:18-21, Ezekiel 16:11-13, 2 Peter 1:3, 2 Peter 1:4

thy neck: Song of Solomon 4:9, Genesis 41:42, Numbers 31:50, Proverbs 1:9, 1 Peter 3:4

Reciprocal: Exodus 39:15 - chains at the ends Exodus 39:18 - two wreathen Song of Solomon 4:4 - neck Song of Solomon 5:13 - cheeks Song of Solomon 7:4 - neck Daniel 5:7 - a chain

Cross-References

Genesis 1:4
And God saw the light, that it was, good, and God divided the light, from the, darkness;

Deuteronomy 32:4
A Rock! faultless his work, For, all his ways, are just, A GOD of faithfulness and without perversity, Right and fair, is he!

Psalms 104:31
Be thy glory, O Yahweh, to times age-abiding, Let Yahweh rejoice in his own works:

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thy cheeks are comely with rows [of jewels],.... Or "beautiful as turtledoves", as the Septuagint; or it may be rendered "with turtles", since the word "jewels" is not in the text; not with images of turtles on the bridles of the horses before mentioned, as Aben Ezra; but rather some ornaments of women having such images on them may be meant, called "turtles", or "turturellas"; they seem to me to be the same with the earrings, which being fastened to a thin plate of gold or silver, which went across the forehead, or to a ribbon bound on it, as Aben Ezra on Genesis 24:22; observes, hung down by the ears in rows on both sides of the cheeks, and made but one ornament; as they did when another jewel from the same plate or ribbon hung down from the forehead to the nose, called a nose jewel, Ezekiel 16:12; a; and such an ornament, consisting of these several parts, Abraham's servant is said to put upon the face or cheeks of Rebekah, Genesis 24:47; and these may respect the gifts and graces of the Spirit of God, with which the church is ornamented; and are many and various, and are orderly and regularly disposed, and make very comely and lovely, and may be further described in the next clause;

thy neck with chains [of gold]; the word "gold" not being in the text, the chains may be understood, as they commonly are by the Jewish writers, of precious stones; as pearls bored and strung, which make a necklace; so Stockius b interprets it of an ornament of pearls and precious stones, orderly disposed and put about the neck, in use with great personages; so the eldest daughter of Priamus had, "collo monile baccatum" c, a pearl necklace, which Aeneas made a present of to Dido; such was the chain of gold, beset with amber, presented to Penelope by her suitors, which shone like the sun d. The church has her golden chain, or pearl necklace; which are either the graces of the Spirit, so linked together, that where there is one there are all; and which consists of those ten links, or pearls, faith, hope, love, repentance, humility, patience, self-denial, contentment in every state, spiritual knowledge, longsuffering, or forbearance; sincerity goes through them all. Or else the spiritual blessings of the covenant of grace, with which the church and all the saints are blessed in Christ at once, and with one and all; and which golden chain of salvation, one link of which cannot be broken, is excellently described by the apostle in Romans 8:30.

a Vid. Hieronym. in ibid. b Clavis Ling. S. p. 387. c Virgil. Aeneid. 1. v. 650. d Homer. Odyss. 18. v. 295.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This and the next Song of Solomon 1:15-7 sections are regarded by ancient commentators (Jewish and Christian) as expressing “the love of espousals” Jeremiah 2:2 between the Holy One and His Church, first in the wilderness of the Exodus, and then in the wilderness of the world Ezekiel 20:35-36.

Song of Solomon 1:9

Or, to a mare of mine in the chariots of Pharaoh I liken thee, O my friend. (The last word is the feminine form of that rendered “friend” at Song of Solomon 5:16.) The comparison of the bride to a beautiful horse is singularly like one in Theocritus, and some have conjectured that the Greek poet, having read at Alexandria the Septuagint Version of the Song, may have borrowed these thoughts from it. If so, we have here the first instance of an influence of sacred on profane literature. The simile is especially appropriate on the lips, or from the pen, of Solomon, who first brought horses and chariots from Egypt 1 Kings 10:28-29. As applied to the bride it expresses the stately and imposing character of her beauty.

Song of Solomon 1:10, Song of Solomon 1:11

Rows ... borders - The same Hebrew word in both places; ornaments forming part of the bride’s head-dress, probably strings of beads or other ornaments descending on the cheeks. The introduction of “jewels” and “gold” in Song of Solomon 1:10 injures the sense and destroys the climax of Song of Solomon 1:11, which was spoken by a chorus (hence “we,” not “I,” as when the king speaks, Song of Solomon 1:9). They promise the bride ornaments more worthy and becoming than the rustic attire in which she has already such charms for the king: “Ornaments of gold will we make for thee with studs (or ‘points’) of silver.” The “studs” are little silver ornaments which it is proposed to affix to the golden (compare Proverbs 25:12), or substitute for the strung beads of the bride’s necklace.

Song of Solomon 1:12-14

The bride’s reply Song of Solomon 1:12 may mean, “While the king reclines at the banquet I anoint him with my costliest perfume, but he has for me a yet sweeter fragrance” Song of Solomon 1:13-14. According to Origen’s interpretation, the bride represents herself as anointing the king, like Mary John 12:3, with her most precious unguents.

Spikenard - An unguent of great esteem in the ancient world, retaining its Indian name in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. It is obtained from an Indian plant now called “jatamansi.”

Song of Solomon 1:13

Render: A bag of myrrh is my beloved to me, which lodgeth in my bosom.

Song of Solomon 1:14

Camphire - Rather, כפר kôpher,” from which “cyprus” is probably derived (in the margin misspelled “cypress “),the name by which the plant called by the Arabs “henna” was known to the Greeks and Romans. It is still much esteemed throughout the East for the fragrance of its flowers and the dye extracted from its leaves. Engedi was famous for its vines, and the henna may have been cultivated with the vines in the same enclosures.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 10. Thy cheeks are comely — D'Arvieux has remarked that "the Arabian ladies wear a great many pearls about their necks and caps. They have golds chains about their necks which hang down upon their bosoms with strings of coloured gauze; the gauze itself bordered with zechins and other pieces of gold coin, which hang upon their foreheads and both cheeks. The ordinary women wear small silver coins, with which they cover their forehead-piece like fish scales, as this is one of the principal ornaments of their faces." I have seen their essence bottles ornamented with festoons of aspers, and small pieces of silver pearls, beads, &c. One of these is now before me.