What Does Song of Solomon 1:13 Mean?
A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he will lodge all night between my breasts.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “bundle” grows from a root that can mean binding and distress, turning what can constrict into an image of the beloved held close.
THE MEANING
Desire is not abstract here: the beloved is a gathered fragrance resting against the speaker’s body through the night. What is held close leaves a lingering presence in the dark.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the belief that tenderness is only something said: here, love is embodied as fragrance and nearness.
THE ROOT
צְרוֹר
tseror
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
To bind or tie together; also to press into a narrow place or bring distress.
A bundle is something gathered by binding. The same root reaches toward constriction and distress, giving this image an intimate tension: the beloved is held close, but the verse presents that closeness as desire.
ALSO GROWS
tsarar: To bind, tie up, or enclose.
צָרַר
The myrrh is gathered into a bundle, something made compact by binding.
tsarah: Distress, trouble, or a tight place.
צָרָה
This related form names being pressed into straits; here, the image of enclosure is tender rather than distressing.
דּוֹדִי
dodi
GROWS FROM
דוד
dod
Beloved or close male kin; the word family also names love and caresses.
“Wellbeloved” comes from the same word family that can name love and caresses. The beloved is not a distant ideal but affection made present, resting against the speaker’s body.
ALSO GROWS
dod: A beloved or male kinsman, including an uncle.
דּוֹד
The word holds affection and close relation together in the name for the beloved.
dodim: Love or caresses.
דּוֹדִים
This word from the same family appears in Song 1:2, where the beloved’s love is called better than wine.
THE PATTERN
Love becomes tangible when it is sensed in the body and carried close.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.All your garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces they gladden you.Then Mary took a pound of ointment of genuine nard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and dried his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the scent of the ointment.THE THREAD
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.The word translated “love” is דּוֹדֶיךָ (dodekha), “your love,” from the same דוד (dod) root as “wellbeloved” in 1:13. One verse names that love as better than wine; the next gives the beloved a body, scent, and place to rest.
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