What Does Song of Solomon 3:9 Mean?
King Solomon makes for himself a litter from the wood of Lebanon.
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
King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon.THE KEY
The “chariot” is a royal litter: Lebanon’s wood becomes the structure that carries the king.
THE MEANING
The verse places the king’s carriage in the act of being made from Lebanon’s trees. Solomon’s name shares a Hebrew root with wholeness, while Lebanon’s name is traditionally linked with whiteness. The image holds a name, a place, and a crafted means of movement together.
THE ROOT
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
ש-ל-ם
Be whole or complete.
Solomon’s name is associated with the root ש-ל-ם, which also gives Hebrew its word for wholeness. That resonance sits inside a verse where the king makes a carriage for himself: the name carries an echo of completeness alongside the image of crafted movement.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being, peace.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch makes the root inside Solomon’s name audible as an echo of wholeness.
shalem: Whole, complete, intact.
שָׁלֵם
This branch brings the root’s sense of completeness into the name without making it a separate claim about the carriage.
לְבָנוֹן
Levanon
GROWS FROM
ל-ב-ן
Be white.
Lebanon’s name is traditionally associated with the root for whiteness, often connected with the pale appearance of its mountains. The verse names this place as the source of the trees from which the king’s carriage is made, so the material carries the place-name’s echo with it.
ALSO GROWS
lavan: White.
לָבָן
This is the clear adjective branch behind the traditional link between Lebanon’s name and whiteness.
levenah: Brick.
לְבֵנָה
This noun belongs to the same consonantal family and shows the root branching into a material word; here, the verse likewise names a material, wood, from a place whose name carries the root’s sound.
THE PATTERN
Wood becomes a means of carrying when it is shaped into a vessel or conveyance.
Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make nests in the ark, and cover it within and without with pitch.From the fir of Senir they built all your planks, and they took cedars from Lebanon to make a mast for you.THE THREAD
Ask for the wholeness of Jerusalem; those who love you are at ease.Solomon’s name is associated with the root ש-ל-ם (sh-l-m), the same root family behind שָׁלוֹם (shalom), rendered “peace” here and carrying the sense of wholeness. The psalm makes that root’s meaning explicit, opening the wholeness echoed in the king’s name.
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