What Does Song of Solomon 2:16 Mean?
My beloved is mine, and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.
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
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.THE KEY
The one called “mine” is also the one to whom the speaker belongs: love here moves in both directions.
THE MEANING
The verse holds intimacy as mutual belonging: the beloved is mine, and I am his. His presence among the lilies gives that bond a living scene of grazing and tending amid beauty.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that being loved means only being possessed: the speaker names belonging in both directions.
THE ROOT
דּוֹדִי
dōdî
GROWS FROM
דוד
The three consonants דוד (d-w-d; dōd) carry the sense of beloved and intimate kin.
The word for “beloved” belongs to a Hebrew word family that also names close kin and intimate affection. English “beloved” holds the tenderness, while the root lets affection and kinship echo together.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: beloved; also uncle, a close male relative
דּוֹד
The kinship sense gives the beloved a nearness that reaches beyond a label of romance.
dōdîm: loves or caresses
דּוֹדִים
This related form, used in Song of Solomon 1:2, shows the same word family expressing love as intimate affection.
רֹעֶה
rōʿeh
GROWS FROM
רעה
The root רעה (r-ʿ-h; rāʿāh) means to pasture, graze, or shepherd.
“pastures” in this verse is rōʿeh. The Hebrew verb can describe grazing as well as shepherding. “Feedeth” carries the grazing image, while the root also holds the sense of tending a flock, placing the beloved among the lilies in a scene of care.
ALSO GROWS
rōʿeh: shepherd; one who pastures or tends
רֹעֶה
This is the form used in the verse, joining the beloved’s presence with the work of tending or grazing.
mirʿeh: pasture; grazing ground
מִרְעֶה
This related noun gives the verb a landscape: the lilies are where the beloved is pictured feeding.
THE PATTERN
Love is expressed as mutual belonging and a presence known through care.
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine; he pastures among the lilies.I am the good shepherd. I perceive my own, and my own perceive me.THE THREAD
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine; he pastures among the lilies.This later verse repeats the word family דּוֹד (dōd, beloved) and the root רעה (rāʿāh, pasture or shepherd), while reversing the order of the mutual claim. The repeated language lets “I am his” and “he is mine” stand together.
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