What Does Song of Solomon 2:15 Mean?
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.
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
Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.THE KEY
The phrase rendered “tender grapes” points to the vines in blossom, so the little foxes threaten fruit while it is still forming.
THE MEANING
This verse names the exposure of something still forming: small disruptions can spoil growth before it ripens. The threat is concrete and shared, “our vines”, so what is tender is held in common. The danger appears before there is ripe fruit to show for the work.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a threat is harmless because it is small; the vineyard’s blossoms show that scale is not the same as consequence.
THE ROOT
מְחַבְּלִים
məḥabbəlîm
GROWS FROM
חבל
To damage or ruin.
“ruin” in this verse is məḥabbəlîm. The foxes are named by what they do: they actively spoil the vineyard, rather than merely appear inside it. The verb centers the verse on damage to growth, so the foxes’ smallness does not make them harmless.
ALSO GROWS
ḥābal: To damage or ruin.
חָבַל
This verbal form carries the destructive force behind the foxes’ action.
ḥăbālāh: Damage or injury.
חֲבָלָה
This noun names the harm left by the destructive action, making the verse’s spoilage concrete.
məḥabbēl: One who damages or destroys.
מְחַבֵּל
This agent form makes explicit that the vineyard is being acted on by spoilers.
אֶחֱזוּ
ʾeḥĕzū
GROWS FROM
אחז
To seize, grasp, or hold.
“Catch for us” in this verse is ʾeḥĕzū. The opening command is to grasp or catch the foxes: the response to spoilage is direct containment. The request is for us, making the vulnerable vineyard and its protection a shared concern.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: To grasp, seize, or hold.
אָחַז
This is the root’s basic action, present in the command to catch the foxes.
ʾăḥuzzāh: A holding, possession, or estate.
אֲחֻזָּה
The noun carries the sense of something held or possessed, echoing the command to take hold of what threatens the vineyard.
THE PATTERN
A small source of disruption can undo something much larger while it is still growing or being built.
And Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, Even what they build, if a fox climbs up on it, he will break through the wall of their stones.Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?Even so the tongue is a small limb, and it lifts its neck over great things. Look how great a forest a little fire kindles!THE THREAD
And Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, Even what they build, if a fox climbs up on it, he will break through the wall of their stones.Both verses use שׁוּעָל (shūʿāl, fox), the same Hebrew word, joining the flowering vineyard to the stone wall. Nehemiah makes the fox a taunt about a wall’s weakness; beside Song’s threatened blossoms, the repeated image shows how something small can threaten what is being cultivated or built.
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