What Does Song of Solomon 6:6 Mean?
Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that go up from the washing, each one bearing twins, and not one bereft among them.
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 teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them.THE KEY
The image sees beauty as wholeness: every tooth matched with its twin, and none lost.
THE MEANING
You are seen in a gaze that delights in embodied beauty: teeth like a flock just washed, every pair intact and none missing. Wholeness is already visible in what is clean and matched; nothing needs to be added to the image.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Wholeness comes only by adding what is lacking. Here, the image praises what is already intact: each twin is present, and none is lost.
THE ROOT
שַׁכּוּלָה
shakkulah
GROWS FROM
שׁכל
To be bereaved, deprived, or to suffer loss.
“bereft” in this verse is shakkulah. The word שַׁכּוּלָה (shakkulah, bereaved or deprived) comes from a root that also names bereavement and loss. That shade deepens the image: no member of the flock is bereaved, and no tooth is missing from its place.
ALSO GROWS
shakal: To be bereaved or lose a child.
שָׁכַל
The flock has no member left bereaved of its young.
shikkel: To deprive or bereave.
שִׁכֵּל
The image emphasizes that no part of the whole has been deprived or lost.
shakkul: Bereaved or deprived.
שַׁכּוּל
This related form sharpens the sense of a complete set with no missing member.
מַתְאִימוֹת
mat'imot
GROWS FROM
תאם
To be twinned or paired; to correspond or match.
“beareth twins” in this verse is mat'imot. The Hebrew form מַתְאִימוֹת (mat’imot, paired or matching) comes from a root connected with twins and matching. The image holds each tooth in relation to its counterpart, so the praise rests on a complete pattern rather than isolated perfection.
ALSO GROWS
te'om: One of a pair of twins.
תְּאוֹם
Each tooth belongs to a matched pair.
te'omim: Twins; a pair born together.
תְּאֹמִים
The paired form echoes the verse’s repeated image of matched teeth.
THE PATTERN
A whole is recognizable when nothing is missing and each part belongs in its place.
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep, all shorn, that climb up from the washing, each one bearing twins, and none among them bereft of young.I open my hands to you, for I am made in awe and wonder. Your works are wonderful, and my living soul perceives it well.But let the bearing up under have its complete work, that you may be complete and entire, with nothing left behind.THE THREAD
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep, all shorn, that climb up from the washing, each one bearing twins, and none among them bereft of young.Song 4:2 uses the same washed flock, twins, and absence of barrenness. Its return in 6:6 makes matched completeness part of the beloved’s sustained portrait: the image praises both beauty and the absence of loss.
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