What Does Song of Solomon 4:5 Mean?
Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that graze 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
Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.THE KEY
The paired fawns grazing among lilies make desire a living image of beauty and nourishment.
THE MEANING
The beloved’s body is seen with tenderness and delight, like two matching fawns, alive among the lilies. The image holds erotic beauty within a garden where life feeds and flourishes.
THE ROOT
הָרֹעִים
hā-rōʿîm
GROWS FROM
רעה
To graze, pasture, or tend.
“graze among the lilies” in this verse is hā-rōʿîm. This root can describe animals grazing and a shepherd tending a flock. The verse’s fawns are not still ornaments: they feed among the lilies, making desire part of a living scene of nourishment.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: Shepherd; one who tends a flock.
רֹעֶה
The same root behind grazing also names the one who tends and feeds, joining nourishment with care.
mir'eh: Pasture; grazing land.
מִרְעֶה
The grazing fawns and their flower-filled setting belong to the same root-world of feeding and pasture.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents erotic love as embodied delight held within reciprocal belonging and blessing.
My beloved is mine, and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine; he pastures among the lilies.Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth.THE THREAD
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine; he pastures among the lilies.The grazing image uses the same Hebrew root as the fawns’ feeding here. In Song 6:3, that image sits beside an explicit exchange of belonging, revealing how nourishment and mutual desire share the garden.
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