Song of Solomon 6
The chapter opens with a question from the daughters of Jerusalem, the chorus of women who have listened to the bride all through the book: Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee (v. 1). They had asked, at the close of the last chapter, what made her beloved better than any other; now, persuaded, they offer to help her find him. And the bride's answer is the great refrain of the Song, returning here at its center: I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies (v. 3). The searching of the earlier chapters gives way to settled belonging. She knows whose she is.3
The beloved then takes up her praise, and his words are worth weighing. He does not merely call her lovely; he reaches for the grandest images he has. She is beautiful as Tirzah and comely as Jerusalem - like royal cities, seats of beauty and strength - and then, twice over in this chapter, terrible as an army with banners (vv. 4, 10). The old word terrible means awe-inspiring, formidable, arresting; her beauty is not fragile but commanding. He calls her his dove, his undefiled, and insists that among all the women of the court she is but one, the single chosen one, praised even by the queens and concubines who see her.
Then the court itself looks on and marvels: Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? (v. 10). The chapter closes in a swirl of garden imagery and a fourfold call - Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee (v. 13). Read first as it stands, this is a song of married love, two people wholly belonging to each other, and Scripture counts that union good. Read in the wider light of the same Scripture, which again and again calls the LORD the husband of His people, it opens a window onto a deeper belonging still.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Song of Solomon 6:1-3I Am My Beloved's, and My Beloved Is Mine
1Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee. 2My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. 3I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.
The chapter opens by picking up a conversation already underway. At the end of the previous chapter the daughters of Jerusalem had pressed the bride with a question - what was so special about this beloved of hers, that she should charge them to seek him? She answered by describing him head to foot, and now, won over, they ask the natural next thing: Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee (v. 1). It is a small but telling shift. Her love, freely spoken, has made them want what she has; her praise of him has become contagious. And notice how they address her - O thou fairest among women. The very ones who questioned her now honor her. The bride answers with quiet assurance rather than alarm: My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies (v. 2). She is not frantic. She knows where he is and what he is about. The wandering and the locked door of the earlier chapters have given way to a settled knowledge of him.
Then comes the line that sits at the very heart of the Song: I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies (v. 3). It is a refrain - a version of it appeared earlier as My beloved is mine, and I am his - but here the order is reversed, and the change is worth noticing. She names her belonging to him first: I am my beloved's. Before she says he is hers, she says she is his. That is the bride's whole identity in a single clause. She does not define herself by her beauty, though she is called fairest; she does not define herself by status or accomplishment. She defines herself by belonging - I am his. And the belonging is mutual, each wholly given to the other, neither possessing without also being possessed. This is the rest the Song has been moving toward all along. After the seeking and the absence and the vulnerability, the bride arrives at a place of security that no longer needs to be defended or proved. To know whose you are is to know who you are. Hers is a love that has stopped striving and simply rests in the fact of belonging.1
Song of Solomon 6:4-9Beautiful as a City, Terrible as an Army
4Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. 5Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead. 6Thy 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. 7As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks.
The beloved now answers her belonging with praise, and his opening images are unexpected: Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners (v. 4). He does not compare her to a flower or a star but to two cities. Tirzah, whose name means something like “pleasant” or “delight,” was a place renowned for its beauty; Jerusalem was the royal city, the seat of the king, the place of God's house. To liken her to these is to call her not merely pretty but stately - a beauty with grandeur in it, the loveliness of a whole city crowned on its hill. And then the line turns startling: terrible as an army with banners. In older English terrible does not mean dreadful in the modern sense; it means awe-inspiring, formidable, the kind of sight that stops a person and commands their gaze. He sees in her the arresting splendor of a great host on the march, ranks ordered and banners lifted. This is praise of a rare kind. It refuses to make the one he loves small or soft or merely decorative. Her beauty, in his eyes, has majesty and even a kind of power; she is glorious, not fragile.
His next words confess how her beauty affects him: Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me (v. 5). It is a remarkable admission. The one he has just called terrible as an army overwhelms him simply with her eyes; he asks her to look away because her gaze is more than he can bear. There is no posture of mastery here, no lover holding the upper hand. He is undone by her. Then he returns to the language of praise he used earlier in the Song, drawing his images from the pastoral world they knew: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead (v. 5) - dark hair flowing down like a herd descending a green hillside; 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 (v. 6) - white, matched, complete, none missing; as a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks (v. 7) - the flush of color at her cheek glimpsed behind her hair. The descriptions are tender and particular. He is not praising beauty in the abstract; he is praising her, this woman, feature by feature, as one who has looked long and lovingly and missed nothing.
8There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. 9My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.
Now the beloved sets his bride against the widest possible backdrop: There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number (v. 8). Sixty queens, eighty concubines, young women beyond counting - the whole splendor of a royal court, every kind of beauty gathered in one place. And against all of it he says: My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her (v. 9). The contrast is the point. Amid uncounted others, she is but one - not one among many but the single one, unique, set apart. My dove, he calls her, a name of purity and gentleness; my undefiled, his perfect and whole one. She is the only one and the choice one, singled out and chosen. This is the answer the Song gives to every fear that love might be diluted by comparison: true love does not rank its beloved against a field of rivals and find her marginally ahead. It sees her as the only one there is. And then a striking thing happens - the very women of the court, the queens and concubines who might have been her rivals, instead saw her, and blessed her… and they praised her. Her worth is so evident that even those who could compete with her acknowledge it. She does not win by defeating others; her singular belovedness simply shines, and others bless what they see.
Song of Solomon 6:10-13Who Is She That Looketh Forth as the Morning
10Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? 11I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded. 12Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib. 13Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.
Now a new voice - the watching court, perhaps, or the chorus of women - lifts a question of pure wonder: Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? (v. 10). The images climb. She is like the morning, the first light breaking over the horizon; fair as the moon, serene and luminous in the night; clear as the sun, pure and dazzling at full strength; and once more terrible as an army with banners, awe-inspiring as a host arrayed for the march. These are no longer comparisons to flowers or even to cities; they are comparisons to the great lights of the heavens. The question Who is she? is the question beauty provokes in those who behold it - not envy but astonishment. She seems almost more than a single woman; she has become a sight that makes onlookers marvel, like dawn itself coming up over the hills. The repetition of terrible as an army with banners from verse 4 binds the court's wonder to the beloved's praise: what he saw in her, others now see too. Her glory is not a private fancy of his; it is real, and it shows.
The next two verses are among the most debated in the Song, and their voice and sense are genuinely difficult: I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded. Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib (vv. 11-12). The first verse is clear enough - someone goes down into a garden in the freshness of spring to see what is coming to life: the green shoots in the valley, the budding vine, the first blossom on the pomegranate. It is the language of the Song everywhere, where love and the garden in bloom belong together; the awakening orchard mirrors the awakening of love. The second verse, verse 12, is famously obscure in the Hebrew - the words about the soul being made like the chariots of Amminadib have puzzled translators for centuries. The general drift seems to be sudden, glad transport: before the speaker was even aware of it, their longing swept them away as swiftly as a charioteer carried off at speed. Whatever its precise sense, the verse conveys the way love can overtake a person all at once - an eagerness that arrives before one has decided on it. The Song does not flatten such a moment into prose; it lets it stay vivid and a little wild, as the experience itself is.3
The chapter ends with a fourfold call and a final, echoing image: Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies (v. 13). Here, for the only time in the Song, the bride is given a name - the Shulamite. The word is most likely a form drawn from Solomon's own name, or from shalom, “peace,” marking her as his and as one who has come into peace; it may also point to her town. Whatever its root, the naming is tender. She is no longer only “my love” or “my dove”; she is called by a name, particular and real. The voices plead with her to return - the word sounded four times, an urgent longing simply to behold her - that we may look upon thee. And the closing line circles back once more to the chapter's great image: As it were the company of two armies. To gaze on her is like watching two great hosts arrayed; she is, again, awe-inspiring, glorious as ranks under their banners. The chapter that opened with a question about where the beloved had gone closes with everyone's eyes fixed on the bride - named, longed for, and beheld with wonder.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Song of Songs 6 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and the classical commentators side by side - useful for the mutual-belonging formula ani le-dodi ve-dodi li (v. 3) and for the much-discussed phrase ayummah ka-nidgalot (vv. 4, 10), “terrible as an army with banners.”
- Song of Solomon 6 ↔ Isaiah 54 · Hosea 2 · Ephesians 5 · 2 Corinthians 11Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying the Song's marriage imagery to the wider canon - the mutual belonging of verse 3 read alongside thy Maker is thine husband (Isa. 54:5) and I will betroth thee unto me for ever (Hos. 2:19), and the beautiful-yet-majestic bride of verses 4 and 10 beside the church Christ would present to himself a glorious church… without blemish (Eph. 5:27).
- The NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Song of Solomon 6 - the daughters' question and the bride's answer in verses 1-3, the royal-city and military imagery of verse 4, the puzzling chariots of verse 12, and the title “Shulamite” with the “company of two armies” in verse 13.
Where this echoes in Scripture
I Am My Beloved’s, and My Beloved Is Mine
- Song of Solomon 2:16My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.The same refrain earlier in the Song - here in verse 3 the order is reversed, putting her belonging to him first.
- Isaiah 43:1Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.The word of God to which the bride’s <em>I am my beloved’s</em> reads like an answer - <em>thou art mine.</em>
- Hosea 2:19-20I will betroth thee unto me for ever... in lovingkindness, and in mercies... and thou shalt know the LORD.The LORD as husband, binding Himself to His people - the deeper belonging the Song’s refrain opens toward.
- 2 Corinthians 11:2I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.The marriage figure carried to Christ and His church - the bride wholly belonging to one beloved.
Beautiful as a City, Terrible as an Army
- Ephesians 5:25-27Christ also loved the church... that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle... holy and without blemish.The bride seen as glorious and undefiled (vv. 4, 9) - how Christ regards and beautifies His church.
- Song of Solomon 4:7Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.The same praise of the bride as flawless and whole - his <em>undefiled</em> of verse 9.
- Psalm 45:13-14The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold... she shall be brought unto the king.A royal bride arrayed in splendor - the stately, glorious beauty the beloved praises in verse 4.
- Isaiah 62:5as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.God rejoicing over His people as a bridegroom - the delighted praise of verses 4-9 lifted to its source.
Who Is She That Looketh Forth as the Morning
- Revelation 19:7-8the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready... arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.The bride beheld in her glory (v. 10) - the marriage of the Lamb and His made-ready bride.
- Matthew 13:43Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.The bride <em>clear as the sun</em> (v. 10) - the redeemed shining in the light God gives them.
- Isaiah 60:1Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.The bride who <em>looketh forth as the morning</em> (v. 10) - a people given light not their own.
- Revelation 21:2I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem... prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.The named, longed-for bride of verse 13 - the city-bride adorned and beheld.