What Does Song of Solomon 8:3 Mean in the King James?
His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.
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
Love here takes bodily form: one hand steadies the beloved while the other draws her close.
THE MEANING
Her head rests in one hand while the other arm gathers her into an embrace. Intimacy is both shelter and desire, held in the same gesture.
THE ROOT
תְּחַבְּקֵנִי
teḥabbeqēnī
GROWS FROM
חבק
to clasp or embrace
“embrace” in this verse is teḥabbeqēnī. The verb describes a bodily clasp, making the beloved’s closeness tangible. Elsewhere, this same root names embraces of welcome and reunion, so the word carries affection enacted through the body.
ALSO GROWS
ḥibbēq: he embraced
חִבֵּק
This form describes Laban embracing Jacob; welcome takes the shape of physical contact (Genesis 29:13).
wayḥabbəqēhū: and he embraced him
וַיְחַבְּקֵהוּ
Esau uses this form as he meets Jacob, making the embrace an act of reunion (Genesis 33:4).
THE PATTERN
An embrace makes love and welcome tangible by gathering another body close.
His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept.And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.THE THREAD
His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.Song 2:6 repeats the same paired image and uses the same Hebrew verb for embrace: חבק (ḥ-b-q, to clasp or embrace). That repetition makes the beloved’s closeness a refrain expressed through the body.
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