What Does Song of Solomon 4:13 Mean in the King James?
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
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 beloved’s “plants” are shoots sent outward, so the body appears as a living garden where release becomes growth.
THE MEANING
Your sensuality is pictured as a living garden: shoots extend, fruit gathers, and fragrance fills the scene. Desire has texture, taste, and growth. The verse speaks of the body as a place where life is already unfolding.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that desire is barren or separate from life’s generative abundance loosens here: the beloved’s sensuality appears as fruit, growth, and fragrance.
THE ROOT
שְׁלָחַיִךְ
shelachayikh
GROWS FROM
שָׁלַח
shalach
To send forth, release, or let go.
The word rendered “plants” means “your shoots” and comes from שָׁלַח (shalach), “send forth, release.” The shoots carry release within their image: life extends outward in fruit and fragrance.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: Send, send forth, release, let go.
שָׁלַח
The shoots named in the verse are what the living source sends outward; the plant image carries release within its word.
Shiloach: Sent; the Hebrew name behind Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The same send-forth root appears in Siloam’s Hebrew name; John links the sent pool’s water with a man’s return to sight.
THE PATTERN
Life unfolds outward from a living source into fruit.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.THE THREAD
And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.The shoots in this verse grow from שָׁלַח (shalach), “send forth, release”; Siloam reflects שִׁלֹחַ (Shiloach), “sent.” The shared root connects the garden’s outward growth with water sent to restore sight.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us