What Does Song of Solomon 4:14 Mean in the King James?
Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
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 praise lets many distinct fragrances remain distinct while gathering them into one beloved.
THE MEANING
The beloved is a gathering of scents: spikenard, saffron, calamus, cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh, and aloes belong together in one presence. Desire encounters many notes at once, then names them all among the finest fragrances.
THE ROOT
בְּשָׂמִים
besamim
GROWS FROM
ב־ש־ם
b-s-m
Aromatic substance or fragrance.
“spices” in this verse is besamim. The Hebrew gathers these named perfumes in one aromatic word-family: they remain distinct, yet belong to a shared sensory field. The verse then calls them the heads, the choicest forms, of that whole family.
ALSO GROWS
bosem: An aromatic substance; a spice or balsam.
בֹּשֶׂם
The singular form shows the shared source beneath the separate scents.
besamim: Spices; aromatic substances.
בְּשָׂמִים
The plural gathers many scents into one category, as this verse gathers distinct perfumes together.
רָאשֵׁי
rashei
GROWS FROM
ר־א־ש
r-ʾ-sh
Head; by extension, topmost, first, or chief.
“Chief spices” pictures the heads or foremost of the aromatics, the choicest scents. After naming individual fragrances, the verse gathers them at the summit of their kind.
ALSO GROWS
rosh: Head; top or chief.
רֹאשׁ
It preserves the verse’s image of the spices as their category’s leading or finest forms.
rishon: First; foremost.
רִאשׁוֹן
It carries the root’s sense of what stands at the front, illuminating “chief” as foremost.
reshit: Beginning; first portion.
רֵאשִׁית
It shows how the root can also mark what comes first or stands at the head.
THE PATTERN
A presence becomes perceptible through the fragrance it carries.
And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed:Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:THE THREAD
Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.Both verses use forms of בְּשָׂמִים (besamim, spices or fragrances). Verse 4:14 names the garden’s many scents; 4:16 shows them flowing outward, turning gathered abundance into release.
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