What Does Song of Solomon 1:16 Mean?
Look, you are fair, my beloved, and sweet indeed; also our couch is green.
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
Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.THE KEY
The lovers’ shared bed is called green: their intimacy is pictured as a living, flourishing place.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as beautiful and delightful by the one who loves you. Your shared bed is pictured as green, fresh, and alive.
THE ROOT
דּוֹדִי
dodi
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
Beloved or lover; the word family also names affection shared between lovers.
The beloved person and the lovers’ caresses belong to the same word family. The verse’s affection is embodied in their shared intimacy.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved, lover; also kinsman or uncle.
דּוֹד
The same word can name the person being loved, giving “my beloved” a close, relational warmth.
dodim: Loves or caresses.
דּוֹדִים
This word for shared affection appears in Song 1:2, linking the beloved with the intimacy between them.
נָעִים
naʿim
GROWS FROM
נעם
n-ʿ-m
To be pleasant or delightful.
“sweet” in this verse is naʿim. Pleasantness here is a felt quality of the relationship, alongside the beloved’s beauty. The same root can name delight as an experience, not only a judgment of appearance.
ALSO GROWS
noʿam: Pleasantness or delight.
נֹעַם
Psalm 27:4 uses this noun for the delight of beholding, showing the root can describe an experience that draws someone in.
neʿimim: Pleasant places.
נְעִמִים
Psalm 16:6 uses this form for places that are pleasant, echoing the verse’s description of a shared space.
THE PATTERN
Shared love is pictured as a place where delight and flourishing take form.
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. In his shade I have craved and sat down, and his fruit is sweet to my palate.A Song of degrees of David. Look, how good and how sweet it is for brothers to settle also together!Marriage is precious among all, and the bed unstained, but God judges the sellers of bodies and the adulterers.THE THREAD
A Song of degrees of David. Look, how good and how sweet it is for brothers to settle also together!The Hebrew נָעִים (naʿim, pleasant) appears in both verses. Here it names delight between lovers; there it describes people dwelling together, showing pleasantness as a quality of shared life.
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