Song of Solomon 2:16 Meaning and Explanation
“My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Few sentences in Scripture say so much with so few words. Two short clauses hold an entire relationship in place, and the closing image keeps that relationship from floating away into abstraction. Readers who wonder whether the Song of Solomon offers more than poetry find here a line that has shaped how believers speak of belonging to God and to one another.
A bride states the settled mutual belonging at the heart of covenant love: she possesses her beloved, he possesses her, and he pastures contentedly among the lilies where she has found him.
The Context of Song of Solomon 2:16
The bride speaks throughout this section. Chapter 2 opens with her self-description as a rose of Sharon and lily of the valleys, moves into her memory of the banqueting house in verse 4, and then reports her beloved arriving over the hills in verse 8. His invitation runs from verse 10 through verse 13, calling her out into a landscape where winter has ended. Verse 14 asks to see her face, verse 15 warns about the little foxes that spoil the vines, and verse 16 answers all of it with a claim of possession. Verse 17 then asks him to return until the shadows flee.
What Does Song of Solomon 2:16 Mean?
The wording moves in a small circle. 'My beloved is mine' comes first, and 'I am his' follows at once, so that the claim and the surrender arrive in a single breath. The order matters: she names what she has received before she names what she gives, and the two halves balance so evenly that neither can be read without the other. Then the picture changes register. 'He feedeth among the lilies' borrows a shepherd's vocabulary of grazing and open ground, and the lilies carry us back to verses 1 and 2, where lily language described the woman herself. The verse closes on an image of unhurried nearness.
Placement gives the line its weight. It answers the anxiety of verse 15, where little foxes threaten vines that are still tender, and it steadies the longing of verse 5, where love has left her weak. Mutual possession is the Song's way of describing a bond that survives absence, delay, and the small spoilers of ordinary life. Scripture uses the same reciprocal grammar for the covenant itself, since the LORD repeatedly promises to take a people for his own and to be their God. Marriage in the Song is a real good in its own right, and its language of belonging became the vocabulary Israel used for life with God.
Two threads run forward from this line. The first is covenant speech: prophets take up marriage language to describe the LORD binding himself to Israel, and Hosea 2:19 speaks of a betrothal that lasts. The second is the shepherd image hidden in 'he feedeth,' which Scripture keeps handing to God and finally to Christ, who calls himself the good shepherd and speaks of knowing his own and being known by them. That mutual knowing sounds much like the mutual having of this verse. The Song stands on its own as a celebration of wedded love, and the wider canon lets us hear in its cadence how God speaks about his people.
Song of Solomon 2:16 in the Original Language
dodi (דּוֹדִי), 'my beloved' -- an affectionate term for a lover, used again and again by the woman across the Song, carrying warmth and possession together rather than serving as a formal title or a personal name.
Bible Verses Related to Song of Solomon 2:16
“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.”
- Song Of Solomon 6:3
“I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me.”
- Song Of Solomon 7:10
“And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.”
- Hosea 2:19
“I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”
- John 10:14
Where Song of Solomon 2:16 Echoes in Scripture
Hosea 2:19-20 gathers this reciprocal language into a divine promise. There the LORD pledges to betroth Israel to himself in righteousness and mercy and faithfulness, so that she will know him. The two short clauses of belonging in the Song appear in that passage in a covenant key, spoken by God about a people who had wandered far. Reading them together shows how naturally Israel's poets and prophets shared one vocabulary for faithful and mutual love.
How to Apply Song of Solomon 2:16 Today
Belonging of this kind gets said out loud. Married couples can practice naming it plainly to each other, in daily words rather than only on anniversaries, since the Song shows a wife saying the obvious thing on purpose. Those who are single can hear in the verse a pattern for how God is claimed and how we are claimed. The closing image suggests something else: the beloved is found where he habitually goes. We tend to meet the people we love in the places they keep returning to, and the same holds for prayer, Scripture, worship, and the ordinary rhythms where God has promised to be near.
Reflection & Prayer
Which half of this sentence is harder for us to say and mean: that he is ours, or that we are his? Sitting with that question for a while can be more useful than answering it quickly. A prayer: Lord, teach me to rest in being yours, and give me the confidence to say so. Where my heart hedges, steady it. Let me look for you where you have promised to be found.