Song of Songs 2:5-7
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
5 (A)Strengthen me with raisin cakes,[a]
refresh me with apples,
for I am sick with love.
6 (B)His left hand is under my head
and his right arm embraces me.
7 (C)I adjure you, Daughters of Jerusalem,[b]
by the gazelles and the does of the field,
Do not awaken, or stir up love
until it is ready.
Footnotes
- 2:5 Raisin cakes: perhaps pastries used in the worship of the fertility goddess (cf. Hos 3:1; Jer 7:18; 44:19). Apples: this is the common translation of a fruit that cannot be identified (cf. 2:3; 8:5); it appears frequently in Sumerian love poetry associated with the worship of the goddess Inanna. Sick: love-sickness is a popular motif in ancient love poetry.
- 2:7 Cf. 3:5; 5:8; 8:4. By the gazelles and the does: perhaps a mitigated invocation of the divinity based on the assonance in Hebrew of the names of these animals with terms for God.
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