Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Song of Solomon 7:11

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 11. Let us go forth into the field — It has been conjectured that the bridegroom arose early every morning, and left the bride's apartment, and withdrew to the country; often leaving her asleep, and commanding her companions not to disturb her till she should awake of herself. Here the bride wishes to accompany her spouse to the country, and spend a night at his country house.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

6:4-8:14 THE STRENGTH OF TRUE LOVE

Desires for each other (6:4-7:13)

Using language that he has used before, the man again praises the girl’s loveliness (4-7; cf. 4:1-3). The nation’s most beautiful women may have been chosen for the palace harem, but they must look with envy upon the beauty of the lovely farm girl who is his beloved (8-10). In a brief parenthesis that follows, the two lovers are reminded of an occasion when they met on the farm. The girl was carried away by her lover’s charms as if taken away by a prince on his chariot (11-12). The theme quickly returns to the praise of the girl, with the harem women asking her to display her beauty for them. But neither she nor her lover want people to gaze upon her as if she were a common dance girl (13).
The girl’s unclothed loveliness is for her lover’s appreciation and no one else’s. He then describes her beauty from her feet to her head (7:1-5), and adds a short erotic song expressing his great desire for her (6-9a). The girl replies that she belongs solely to him. She wants to go for a walk with him through the fields and vineyards, where together they can enjoy each other’s love (9b-13).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

THE SHULAMITE'S FINAL REJECTION OF THE KING

"I am my beloved's; And his desire is toward me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; Let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; Let us see whether the vine hath budded, And its blossom is open, And the pomegranates are in flower: There will I give thee my love. The mandrakes give forth fragrance; And at our doors are all manner of precious fruits, new and old, Which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved."

There are very powerful reasons for seeing these verses as a rejection of the king by the Shulamite. Chief of those reasons is the dramatic word HIS that stands at the head of this paragraph. "I am my beloved's, and HIS desire is toward me" (Song of Solomon 7:10). This contrasts with the sixteen personal pronouns in the second person which dominate the king's flattering appeal. They are the equivalent of you, you, you, you - sixteen times! Yet the very first words of the Shulamite were addressed to the king standing right there in front of her; and yet she spoke of her beloved in the third person! and it is impossible to refer the word his to Solomon. The Shulamite's lover was not present. She spoke of him, not to him. He was the shepherd, not the king.

Furthermore, the balance of the paragraph fully harmonizes with that understanding.

"Let us go forth into the field" (Song of Solomon 7:11). This could not possibly refer either to a palace or to a harem.

"Let us lodge in the villages" (Song of Solomon 7:11). The Shulamite is definitely not speaking of Jerusalem.

"Let us get up early" (Song of Solomon 7:12). Even a fool knows that farmers get up early; kings don't!

"Let us see whether the vine hath budded, etc." (Song of Solomon 7:12). The employment mentioned here is that of rural dwellers, not that of urbanites.

"There will I give thee my love" (Song of Solomon 7:12). The use of the second person pronoun here cannot change what she has already said. In these words, she is speaking of her true love, the shepherd, who will accompany her in their inspection of the vineyard. Can anyone imagine Solomon going with one of his concubines on such a mission?

We have somewhat elaborated the exposition of these verses, because our interpretation differs sharply from that which is advocated by most of the commentators we have consulted.

Waddey: "The queen gently requests that her husband take her for a visit to her old home place."James Waddey, p. 122.

Bunn: "The maiden now invites her lover to receive her love."Broadman Bible Commentary (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1972), Vol. 5, p. 146..

Delitzsch, while rejecting it, fairly stated the hypothesis which we have accepted: "Advocates of the shepherd-hypothesis believe that the faithful Shulamite, after hearing Solomon's panegyric, shakes her head (negatively), saying, `I am my beloved's.'"C. F. Keil, Keil-Delitzsch's Old Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), Vol. 6c, p. 134.

Cook: His whole comment on this last paragraph was; "All his affection has me for its object. The bride proceeds to exercise her power over his loving will."Barnes' Notes on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989 reprint of 1878 Edition), Song of Solomon, p. 135.

Woodstra: "This is the king extolling the beauty of his bride and her love for him."The Wycliffe Old Testament Commentary, p. 602.

Meek: "This is repeated in part from Song of Solomon 2:16 and Song of Solomon 6:3.

Here, as frequently elsewhere in the book the lovers are represented as separated, with the girl longing for her beloved."The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 5, p. 139

Robinson: "The Shulamite speaks here in reply to the king. Her heart is set on her native fields and vineyards. These are more attractive to her than the splendor and ceremony of a court."The Preacher's Homiletic Commentary, Vol. 14b, p. 117.

Willard: "The first nine verses of this chapter are held to be evidence of decadence and lust on the part of the aging Solomon. It is probably the most difficult portion of the book for those who interpret Solomon and the maiden to mean Christ and the Church."The Teachers' Bible Commentary, p. 389.

Adam Clarke: "Here the bride wishes to accompany her spouse to the country and spend a night in his country house."Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible, (London: T. Mason and G. Lane, 1837), Vol. III, p. 869.

This writer's acceptance of the shepherd-hypothesis in our interpretation is influenced substantially by what is written in Song of Solomon 2. See our comments there. Also a key factor in our interpretation is our utter inability to find anything in the Biblical record of Solomon's life that is fit to be compared to the sinless Son of God.

The allegorical interpretation has been favored throughout the centuries since the destruction of Jerusalem, in spite of the fact that there is no hint whatever in the Song itself that the production is, in any sense, an allegory; and no inspired writer ever indicated such a thing. This writer confesses that the principal reason for accepting an allegorical interpretation lies in the near-impossibility of the book's presence in the Bible by any other means.

Many questions about the Song of Solomon remain unanswered in this writer's mind; and it is our prayer that further study may shed more light on it.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 7

Now the daughters of Jerusalem address themselves to the Shulamite and they say,

How beautiful are thy feet with shoes ( Song of Solomon 7:1 ),

Or within thy sandals.

O prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies ( Song of Solomon 7:1-2 ).

And I suppose that was complimentary to them. I'm not that kind of an expressive person, and it doesn't do much for me.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools of Heshbon ( Song of Solomon 7:3-4 ),

I imagine blue, pretty.

by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon ( Song of Solomon 7:4 )

Now I don't know that I would appreciate that.

which looketh toward Damascus ( Song of Solomon 7:4 ).

Solomon built this tower in Lebanon after he had completed his palace. So some twenty years after he was married to the daughter of Pharaoh. There are some who believe that the one he speaks of is Pharaoh's daughter, but this sort of precludes that because the song evidently was written after twenty years of marriage to her, and it seems that a new interest has taken in with the Shulamite.

Thy head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of your head like purple; the King is held in the galleries ( Song of Solomon 7:5 ).

Or he is bound by that beauty.

How fair and how pleasant art you, O love, for delights! This thy stature is like unto a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak ( Song of Solomon 7:6-9 ).

The bride responds.

I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me ( Song of Solomon 7:10 ).

Now think of this in the church and Jesus Christ and it becomes very beautiful indeed. He loves me. "I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me." He desires me. Christ desires you. Your love, your response. He desires me. That to me is just uncanny.

Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourishes, whether the tender grape appears, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved ( Song of Solomon 7:11-13 ).

"

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

C. The Wife’s Initiative 7:11-13

Secure in her love, the Shulammite now felt free to initiate sex directly, rather than indirectly as earlier (cf. Song of Solomon 1:2 a, Song of Solomon 2:6). The references to spring suggest the freshness and vigor of love. Mandrakes were fruits that resembled small apples, and the roots possessed narcotic properties. [Note: Exum, Song of . . ., p. 242.] They were traditionally aphrodisiacs (cf. Genesis 30:14-16).

"The unusual shape of the large forked roots of the mandrake resembles the human body with extended arms and legs. This similarity gave rise to the popular superstition that the mandrake could induce conception and it was therefore used as a fertility drug." [Note: The NET Bible note on 7:13.]

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Come, my beloved,.... The word come is often used by Christ, and here by the church, in imitation of him; see Song of Solomon 2:10. This call is the call of the church upon Christ, to make good his promise, Song of Solomon 7:8; and is an earnest desire after the presence of Christ, and the manifestations of his love; which desire is increased the more it is enjoyed; and it shows the sense she had of her own insufficiency for the work she was going about: she knew that visiting the several congregations of the saints would be to little purpose, unless Christ was with her, and therefore she urges him to it; not that he was backward and unwilling to go with her, but he chooses to seem so, to make his people the more earnest for his presence, and to prize it the more when they have it; and it is pleasing to him to hear them ask for it. The endearing character, "my beloved", is used by the church, not only to express her affection for Christ, and faith of interest in him, but as an argument to engage him to go along with her. Her requests follow;

let us go forth into the field; from the city, where she had been in quest of Christ, and had now found him, Song of Solomon 5:7; into the country, for recreation and pleasure: the allusion may be to such who keep their country houses, to which they retire from the city, and take their walks in the fields, to see how the fruits grow, and enjoy the country air. The church is for going abroad into the fields; but then she would have Christ with her; walking in the fields yields no pleasure unless Christ is there; there is no recreation without him: the phrase expresses her desire of his presence everywhere, at home and abroad, in the city and the fields; and of her being with him alone, that she might tell him all her mind, and impart her love to him, which she could better do alone than in company it may also signify her desire to have the Gospel spread in the world, in the barren parts of it, which looked like uncultivated fields, the Gentile world; and so, in one of the Jewish Midrashes c, these "fields", and the "villages" in the next clause, are interpreted of the nations of the world;

let us lodge in the villages; which, though places of mean entertainment for food and lodging, yet, Christ being with her, were more eligible to her than the greatest affluence of good things without him; and, being places of retirement from the noise and hurry of the city, she chose them, that she might be free of the cares of life, and enjoy communion with Christ, which she would have continued; and therefore was desirous of "lodging", at least all night, as in Song of Solomon 1:13. Some d render the words, "by", "in", or "among [the] Cyprus trees"; see Song of Solomon 1:14; by which may be meant the saints, comparable to such trees for their excellency, fragrancy, and fruitfulness; and an invitation to lodge by or with these could not be unwelcome to Christ, they being the excellent in the earth, in whom is all his delight.

c Shir Hashirim Rabba in loc. d Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Brightman, Michaelis.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      10 I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.   11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.   12 Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves.   13 The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

      These are the words of the spouse, the church, the believing soul, in answer to the kind expressions of Christ's love in the foregoing verses.

      I. She here triumphs in her relation to Christ and her interest in him, and in his name will she boast all the day long. With what a transport of joy and holy exultation does she say (Song of Solomon 7:10; Song of Solomon 7:10), "I am my beloved's, not my own, but entirely devoted to him and owned by him." If we can truly say that Christ is our best beloved, we may be confident that we are his and he will save us,Psalms 119:94. The gracious discoveries of Christ's love to us should engage us greatly to rejoice in the hold he has of us, his sovereignty over us and property in us, which is no less a spring of comfort than a bond of duty. Intimacy of communion with Christ should help clear up our interest in him. Glorying in this, that she is his, to serve him, and reckoning that her honour, she comforts herself with this, that his desire is towards her, that is, he is her husband; it is a periphrasis of the conjugal relation, Genesis 3:16. Christ's desire was strongly towards his chosen remnant, when he came from heaven to earth to seek and save them; and when, in pursuance of his undertaking, he was even straitened till the baptism of blood he was to pass through for them was accomplished,Luke 12:50. He desired Zion for a habitation; this is a comfort to believers that, whosoever slights them, Christ has a desire towards them, such a desire as will again bring him from heaven to earth to receive them to himself; for he longs to have them all with him, John 17:24; John 14:3.

      II. She humbly and earnestly desires communion with him (Song of Solomon 7:11; Song of Solomon 7:12): "Come, my beloved, let us take a walk together, that I may receive counsel, instruction, and comfort from thee, and may make known my wants and grievances to thee, with freedom, and without interruption." Thus Christ can walk with the two disciples that were going to the village called Emmaus, and talked with them, till he made their hearts burn within them. Observe here, 1. Having received fresh tokens of his love, and full assurances of her interest in him, she presses forward towards further acquaintance with him; as blessed Paul, who desired yet more and more of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus,Philippians 3:8. Christ has made it to appear how much his desire is towards us, and we are very ungrateful if ours be not towards him. Note, Communion with Christ is that which all that are sanctified earnestly breathe after; and the clearer discoveries he makes to them of his love the more earnestly do they desire it. Sensual pleasures pall the carnal appetite, and soon give it surfeit, but spiritual delights whet the desires, the language of which is, Nothing more than God, but still more and more of him. Christ had said, I will go up to the palm-tree. Come, saith she, Let us go. The promises Christ has made us of communion with him are not to supersede, but quicken and encourage, our prayers for that communion. 2. She desires to go forth into the fields and villages to have this communion with him. Those that would converse with Christ must go forth from the world and the amusements of it, must avoid every thing that would divert the mind and be a hindrance to it when it should be wholly taken up with Christ; we must contrive how to attend upon the Lord without distraction (1 Corinthians 7:35), for therefore the spouse here covets to get out of the noise of the town. Let us go forth to him without the camp,Hebrews 14:13. Solitude and retirement befriend communion with God; therefore Isaac went out into the field to meditate and pray. Enter into thy closet, and shut thy door. A believer is never less alone than when alone with Christ, where no eye sees. 3. Having business to go abroad, to look after their grounds, she desires the company of her beloved. Note, Wherever we are, we may keep up our communion with God, if it be not our own fault, for he is always at our right hand, his eye always upon us, and both his word and his ear always nigh us. By going about our worldly affairs with heavenly holy hearts, mixing pious thoughts with common actions, and having our eyes ever towards the Lord, we may take Christ along with us whithersoever we go. Nor should we go any whither where we cannot in faith ask him to go along with us. 4. She is willing to rise betimes, to go along with her beloved: Let us get up early to the vineyards. It intimates her care to improve opportunities of conversing with her beloved; when the time appointed has come, we must lose no time, but, as the woman (Mark 16:2), go very early, though it be to a sepulchre, if we be in hopes to meet him there. Those that will go abroad with Christ must begin betimes with him, early in the morning of their days, must begin every day with him, seek him early, seek him diligently. 5. She will be content to take up her lodging in the villages, the huts or cottages which the country people built for their shelter when they attended their business in the fields; there, in these mean and cold dwellings, she will gladly reside, if she may but have her beloved with her. His presence will make them fine and pleasant, and convert them into palaces. A gracious soul can reconcile itself to the poorest accommodations, if it may have communion with God in them. 6. The most pleasant delightful fields, even in the spring-time, when the country is most pleasant, will not satisfy her, unless she have her beloved with her. No delights on earth can make a believer easy, unless he enjoy God in all.

      III. She desires to be better acquainted with the state of her own soul and the present posture of its affairs (Song of Solomon 7:12; Song of Solomon 7:12): Let us see if the vine flourish. Our own souls are our vineyards; they are, or should be, planted with vines and pomegranates, choice and useful trees. We are made keepers of these vineyards, and therefore are concerned often to look into them, to examine the state of our own souls, to seek whether the vine flourishes, whether our graces be in act and exercise, whether we be fruitful in the fruits of righteousness, and whether our fruit abound. And especially let us enquire whether the tender grape appear and whether the pomegranates bud forth, what good motions and dispositions there are in us that are yet but young and tender, that they may be protected and cherished with a particular care, and may not be nipped, or blasted, or rubbed off, but cultivated, that they may bring forth fruit unto perfection. In this enquiry into our own spiritual state, it will be good to take Christ along with us, because his presence will make the vine flourish and the tender grape appear, as the returning sun revives the gardens, and because to him we are concerned to approve ourselves. If he sees the vine flourish, and the tender grape appear--if we can appeal to him, Thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee,--if his Spirit witness with our spirit that our souls prosper, it is enough. And, if we would be acquainted with ourselves, we must beg of him to search and try us, to help us in the search, and discover us to ourselves.

      IV. She promises to her beloved the best entertainment she can give him at her country seat; for he will come in to us, and sup with us, Revelation 3:20. 1. She promises him her best affections; and, whatever else she had for him, it would utterly be contemned if her heart were not entire for him: "There therefore will I give thee my love; I will repeat the professions of it, honour thee with the tokens of it; and the out-goings of my soul towards thee in adorations and desires shall be quickened and enlarged, and my heart offered up to thee in a holy fire." 2. She promises him her best provision, Song of Solomon 7:13; Song of Solomon 7:13. "There we shall find pleasant odours, for the mandrakes give a smell;" the love-flowers or lovely ones (so the word signifies), or the love-fruits; it was something that was in all respects very grateful, so valuable that Rachel and Leah had like to have fallen out above it, Genesis 30:14. "We shall also find that which is good for food, as well as pleasant to the eye, all the rarities that the country affords: At our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits." Note, (1.) The fruits and exercises of grace are pleasant to the Lord Jesus. (2.) These must be carefully laid up for him, devoted to his service and honour, must be always ready to us when we have occasion for them, as that which is laid up at our gates, that, by our bringing forth much fruit, he may be glorified, John 15:18. (3.) There is a great variety of these pleasant fruits, with which our souls should be well stocked; we must have all sorts of them, grace for all occasions, new and old, as the good householder has in his treasury, not only the products of this year, but remainders of the last, Matthew 13:52. We must not only have that ready to us, for the service of Christ, which we have heard, and learned, and experienced lately, but must retain that which we have formerly gathered; nor must we content ourselves only with what we have laid up in store in the days of old, but, as long as we live, must be still adding something new to it, that our stock may increase, and we may be thoroughly furnished for every good work. (4.) Those that truly love Christ will think all they have, even their most pleasant fruits, and what they have treasured up most carefully, too little to be bestowed upon him, and he is welcome to it all; if it were more and better, it should be at his service. It is all from him, and therefore it is fit it should be all for him.