What Does Song of Solomon 3:5 Mean in the King James?
I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse gives love its own timing: it repeats the Hebrew root for waking and rousing to say that desire is not awakened before it wants to rise.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the charged space before desire awakens: love has a timing of its own, and urgency cannot make it ready. Its repeated warning holds intimacy as something that unfolds with love’s own readiness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that insistence or urgency can make desire ready before it is.
THE ROOT
תָּעִירוּ
taʿiru
GROWS FROM
עור
ʿ-w-r
Wake, become alert, or rouse.
“stir up / awake” in this verse is taʿiru. The refrain uses the same root twice, in two different verbal forms. English gives two near-synonyms, while Hebrew makes their shared seed audible: do not wake desire, nor keep stirring it awake.
ALSO GROWS
ʿur: To wake or become awake.
עוּר
The base form holds awakening as a state that can arise within the one who wakes.
heʿir: To wake or rouse someone or something.
הֵעִיר
This causative form makes the act of rousing another explicit.
ʿorer: To stir up or rouse.
עוֹרֵר
This form echoes the second verb in the verse, intensifying the warning against provoking desire.
תֶּחְפָּץ
teḥpatz
GROWS FROM
חפץ
ḥ-p-ṣ
Desire, take pleasure in, or delight.
“please / desire” in this verse is teḥpatz. The word rendered “please” carries the sense of wanting or taking pleasure. Its feminine singular form lets the line speak of love herself as the one who desires: the awakening waits for her readiness.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāfēṣ: To want or delight in something.
חָפֵץ
It makes the timing in the verse a matter of desire, not an outside schedule.
ḥēfeṣ: A desire, delight, or thing desired.
חֵפֶץ
This noun keeps pleasure and wanting close to the verse’s final word.
הָאַהֲבָה
ha-ahavah
GROWS FROM
אהב
ʾ-h-b
Love, affection, or attachment.
The verse first presents love as something others might rouse, then its feminine grammar allows love herself to become the one who desires. Love is not merely the object of someone else’s action; the line gives her agency and timing.
ALSO GROWS
ʾahav: To love or cherish.
אָהַב
The verb carries the living act behind the noun “love.”
ʾohev: A person who loves; a lover.
אֹהֵב
This branch shows love as a relation between living persons, not only an abstract feeling.
ʾahuv: One who is loved; a beloved person.
אָהוּב
It brings the personal and relational sense of love into the verse’s intimate address.
THE PATTERN
Desire and intimacy have their own timing, and outside pressure cannot create their readiness.
I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.THE THREAD
Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.Psalm 57:8 repeats עוּר (ʿur, to wake or rouse) in a self-directed call to awaken praise. Song 3:5 uses the same root twice to warn against rousing love before she desires; together, the verses show awakening arising from within rather than being assigned from outside.
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