What Does Song of Solomon 2:1 Mean?
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
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
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.THE KEY
The lily is not above the valleys: the verse locates beauty inside the depths.
THE MEANING
You are named as both a flower of Sharon and a lily of the valleys. The image holds open ground and depth together, placing your beauty in more than one kind of terrain.
THE ROOT
הָעֲמָקִים
ha-ʿamaqim
GROWS FROM
עמק
To be deep; depth.
The Hebrew word for “valleys” comes from a root meaning depth. The verse places the lily within that depth, joining beauty with the low places rather than setting them apart.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēmeq: Valley; depth.
עֵמֶק
This is the singular form behind “valleys,” making the landscape itself part of the verse’s image of depth.
ʿāmōq: Deep.
עָמֹק
This related form makes visible the depth carried inside the word translated “valleys.”
heʿĕmîq: To deepen; make deep.
הֶעֱמִיק
This verb shares the same root, linking the valley’s depth with the action of deepening.
THE PATTERN
Flourishing appears within its terrain, including wilderness and valleys of sorrow.
The wilderness and the parched place rejoice, and the desert plain leaps and blooms like the crocus.Passing through the valley of weeping, they make it a spring. The early rain also wraps itself in blessings.Look closely at the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, and yet I say to you, Solomon in all his weight was not clothed like one of these.THE THREAD
Passing through the valley of weeping, they make it a spring. The early rain also wraps itself in blessings.Both verses use עֵמֶק (ʿēmeq), “valley,” from the root עמק (ʿ-m-q), “to be deep.” Song’s lily belongs within that depth; Psalm’s valley of Baca becomes a well, linking the deep place with life arising there.
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