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Song of Solomon 8:4

John Gill - Exposition - John Gill

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I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up,

nor awake [my] love, until he please. The phrase, "by the roes [and] by the hinds of the field", used in So 2:7; is here omitted; not as if the charge was less vehement and earnest here, for the form of expostulation seems rather to express more earnestness: for the words may be rendered, "why will ye", or "why should ye stir up, and why awake my love?" (i) being apprehensive they were about to do it; and which she dissuades from, as unreasonable and dangerous, and might be prejudicial to them as well as to her. The allusion is to virgins, that sung songs at marriages; one in the evening, lulling to sleep; and another in the morning, awaking and stirring up from it (k).

(i) מה, "cur", Montanus, Schmidt. (k) Vid. Theocrit. Idyll. 18.

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