What Does Song of Solomon 5:11 Mean?
His head is as fine gold; his locks hang in clusters, and black as a raven.
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
His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven.THE KEY
The raven-black curls do not interrupt the gold; their contrast is the beloved’s splendor.
THE MEANING
The beloved’s head gleams like fine gold, while his gathered curls are black as a raven. You see radiance and darkness held together in one portrait, neither feature canceling the other. The verse makes attentive, particular seeing part of how beauty appears now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Dark or abundant hair cannot carry beauty. Here the beloved’s raven-black, full locks belong to the image of his splendor.
THE ROOT
קְוֻצּוֹתָיו
qevutsotav
GROWS FROM
קבץ
qavats
Gather, collect, assemble.
The word for “locks” is built from qavats, “to gather.” The hair’s bushiness is more than size: many strands form clustered curls, with the idea of gathering held inside the image.
ALSO GROWS
qavats: To gather or collect.
קָבַץ
The locks appear as gathered strands, giving the bushy hair a sense of clustered abundance.
qibbuts: A gathering or collective.
קִבּוּץ
This branch makes the gathered quality of the beloved’s curls more visible.
רֹאשׁוֹ
rosho
GROWS FROM
רֹאשׁ
rosh
Head, top, chief; the uppermost point or what stands first.
English gives a body part, but rosh also names what is highest or first. Calling the beloved’s head gold turns his uppermost point into a crownlike image of preciousness.
ALSO GROWS
rashim: Heads or chiefs.
רָאשִׁים
The branch carries the sense of the head as the highest or leading part.
reshit: Beginning or first part.
רֵאשִׁית
The shared root links the head with what stands at the top or first.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes splendor visible through particular bodily details, with hair and color carrying part of the portrait.
The adornment of young men is their strength, and the beauty of old men is gray hair.But in all Israel there was no one so praised as Absalom for his beauty; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.His head and his hair are white like wool, white like snow, and his eyes are like a flame of fire.THE THREAD
But in all Israel there was no one so praised as Absalom for his beauty; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.The same Hebrew word, rosh (רֹאשׁ, head), places the beloved’s golden head beside Absalom’s crown of head as a measure of beauty. The shared root makes the head the body’s summit, where the portrait gathers its image of worth.
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