What Does Song of Solomon 8:7 Mean in the King James?
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
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 is a flame no flood can extinguish and no fortune can purchase.
THE MEANING
Love is present as a flame that overwhelming pressure cannot put out. Everything held in your house still cannot equal it, and trying to price it ends in contempt.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that love can be secured by wealth or erased by whatever overwhelms it.
THE ROOT
לְכַבּוֹת
lekhabot from kabah
GROWS FROM
כבה
To extinguish, or to go out.
In Hebrew, “quench” is lekhabot (לְכַבּוֹת), from kabah (כבה), the verb for a flame going out. Elsewhere it describes lamp and altar fire, so the line pictures love as a flame that water cannot extinguish.
ALSO GROWS
tikbeh: Goes out; is extinguished.
תִּכְבֶּה
This root describes the lamp of God going out; here, the same extinguishing image frames love as a flame.
lo tikbeh: Shall never go out.
לֹא תִכְבֶּה
The root describes the altar fire that remains burning, echoing the image of love that cannot be put out.
THE PATTERN
Love endures what would overwhelm it and cannot be measured by what surrounds it.
And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.THE THREAD
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.This verse uses the same Hebrew word for love, ahavah (אַהֲבָה), and names that love as a vehement flame. Verse 7 asks what can extinguish the flame and answers with the image of waters: even a flood cannot put it out.
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