Song of Solomon 7
The bridegroom takes up the praise of his bride once more, and this time he begins at her feet and works upward - How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels… Thy neck is as a tower of ivory (vv. 1-4). The portrait is unhurried and deliberate, reaching at last the crown of her head. Every line of it is praise; nothing in it asks her to be other than she is. The imagery is drawn from the most prized and beautiful things his world knew - jewels and ivory, wheat and wine, a tower, a palm tree - and it is offered with reverence, the language of a husband delighting in his wife. The Song does not flinch from the goodness of married love; it sings it.3
At the height of his praise the bride answers, and her answer has outlived every other line in the book: I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me (v. 10). It is a statement of belonging, and of being wanted. She does not feel reduced by his longing; she feels secured by it. The word rendered desire is unusual - the same rare Hebrew word that sounds, elsewhere in Scripture, in a far heavier setting - and here it is turned, restored, set in the warm context of covenant love. To be desired by the one to whom you have given yourself, and to whom you belong, is here named as a good and steadying thing.
Then the bride turns the praise outward into invitation. She will not keep their love behind city walls; she draws him out into the open country, to the budding vines and the opening pomegranates: Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field… there will I give thee my loves (vv. 11-12). She is not passive in this love. She answers desire with desire, belonging with offering, and the chapter ends with her giving herself freely to the one who is hers. The whole movement - praise, belonging, invitation - is one the rest of Scripture will reach for again and again to say something about God and His people.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Song of Solomon 7:1-5How Beautiful Are Thy Feet
1How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. 2Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies. 3Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. 4Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. 5Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in the galleries.
The bridegroom begins his praise at her feet and moves upward to the crown of her head - the reverse of the usual order in this kind of song, and the effect is of a gaze that takes in the whole person, unhurried and complete. He calls her prince's daughter (v. 1), language of dignity and worth; whatever her station, in his eyes she is royal. Each image is drawn from what his world held most precious - jewels set by a master craftsman, a goblet of good wine, an heap of wheat ringed with lilies, a tower of ivory, the deep pools of Heshbon. The comparisons are large and stately: a tower, a mountain (Carmel), the watchtower of Lebanon. This is not the flattery of a passing admirer but the settled delight of a husband, and it is offered with restraint and reverence rather than coarseness. Notice too that nothing here asks her to change. He is not listing flaws or demanding improvement; every line celebrates what she already is. To be seen this way - fully, and with delight - is one of the deep gifts of covenant love.3
The first movement closes with a striking line: the king is held in the galleries (v. 5). The flowing hair of the bride, the poem says, has caught and held the king - he is captivated, bound, unwilling to look away. It is a picture of love's holy captivity: the strong one willingly held by the one he loves. There is no shame in being so taken with another person; within the bond of marriage it is portrayed as good and beautiful. The Song repeatedly resists the lie that desire is something low or merely animal. Here desire is woven all through with admiration, tenderness, and committed love - the king is not merely stirred, he is held, drawn in and kept by the whole person of his bride. Beauty, in this poem, is never separated from belonging; the one he praises is the one who is his.
Song of Solomon 7:6-9How Fair and How Pleasant Art Thou
6How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! 7This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. 8I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; 9And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.
The praise gathers to a height and breaks into open exclamation: How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! (v. 6). He no longer compares one feature to one thing; he simply names her, whole, as a delight. Then he reaches for the tallest and most graceful image in his landscape: This thy stature is like to a palm tree (v. 7). A palm stands upright, slender, fruitful, lovely against the sky - and he says he will go up to the palm tree and take hold of the boughs thereof (v. 8), the language of drawing near to gather its fruit. The imagery is sensuous but never crude; it is the poetry of a husband moving toward his wife with desire that is glad and unashamed. Every comparison is to something good - fruit, wine, the scent of apples. The Song insists, line after line, that married love is not a thing to be whispered about or apologized for. It is pleasant… for delights, and the one who made man and woman wrote that delight into the design.
The bridegroom likens the bride's kiss to the best wine (v. 9) - wine that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak. The picture is of a love so good it wakes the sleeper and loosens the silent tongue; even the drowsy are stirred to speech by it. Throughout these verses the senses come alive together - sight in the palm tree, taste in the wine, smell in the apples - because the love being celebrated is the love of whole persons, body and all. And it is mutual. He says her kiss is wine for my beloved, and in the very next breath the bride herself will pick up the line and finish it (v. 10), the two voices flowing into one. This is the Song's steady vision: desire that is shared, given and received between two who belong to each other, neither one merely the object of the other's wanting. The goodness of the body, the goodness of delight, the goodness of a love that is answered - the poem holds all three together and calls them clean.
Song of Solomon 7:10-13I Am My Beloved's, and His Desire Is Toward Me
10I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. 11Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. 12Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. 13The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
After all the bridegroom's praise, the bride speaks - and her single line has outlasted everything else in the book: I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me (v. 10). Hear the two halves of it. First, belonging: I am my beloved's. She has said versions of this before in the Song (My beloved is mine, and I am his), but the order keeps shifting, and here she begins not with what is hers but with whose she is. To belong to another in love is not loss; it is the very ground she stands on. And then the second half, which is the heart of the verse: his desire is toward me. She does not merely belong to him in some formal, contractual way; she is wanted. His longing is set on her, and she knows it, and far from feeling reduced by it she feels steadied. This is one of the Song's deepest insights into love: to be desired by the one to whom you have given yourself, the one to whom you securely belong, is not a threat to your dignity but a confirmation of it. The two halves hold together - belonging without being wanted can feel cold; being wanted without belonging can feel unsafe. Here they are one: she is his, and his desire is toward her.
Then the bride does what the desired do when they are secure: she answers desire with desire, and turns belonging into invitation. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages (v. 11). She will not keep their love hemmed in behind city walls. She draws him out into the open country, to the budding vineyards and the opening pomegranates, where in the freshness of the morning - let us get up early - she promises, there will I give thee my loves (v. 12). She is not passive in this love; she is glad and forward and giving. And she has prepared for him: at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved (v. 13). She has thought of him in advance, stored up good things, made ready a gift of herself and her abundance. The chapter ends not on his wanting but on her giving - love that is desired, and freely gives itself back. This is the full shape of covenant love in the Song: not one person pursuing and another merely received, but two who belong to each other, each turning toward the other with delight.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Song of Songs 7 with Rashi and other classical commentators side by side - useful for weighing the rare word teshuqah (v. 10, “his desire”), the covenant refrain I am my beloved's, and the way the synagogue read this love poetry as a picture of the LORD and His people.
- Song of Solomon 7 ↔ Genesis 2 · Isaiah 62 · Ephesians 5 · Revelation 19Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying the bridegroom's love here to the rest of Scripture - the goodness of the man-and-woman union (Gen. 2:24) and the recurring picture of a bridegroom whose desire is set on his bride (Isa. 62:5; Eph. 5:25-32; Rev. 19:7), the image by which the Bible tells the love of God for His people.
- The NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Song of Solomon 7 - the deliberate head-to-foot structure of the praise in verses 1-5, the palm-tree and vineyard imagery of verses 7-9, and the rare term behind “his desire” in verse 10.
Where this echoes in Scripture
How Beautiful Are Thy Feet
- Genesis 1:31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.The goodness the praise of verses 1-5 takes for granted - the body and its delight are part of a creation God called very good.
- Psalm 45:11So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.A royal wedding song echoing the bridegroom’s delight here - read by the church as a picture of Christ and His bride.
- Song of Solomon 4:7Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.The same wholehearted praise - the bridegroom delighting in his bride without reservation, as in verses 1-5.
- Ephesians 5:27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle... but that it should be holy and without blemish.Beauty as a gift of love - the bride made glorious by the One who loves her, the deeper note under the praise of verses 1-5.
How Fair and How Pleasant Art Thou
- Proverbs 5:18-19Rejoice with the wife of thy youth... let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.The same unembarrassed delight in married love that fills verses 6-9 - Scripture commending, not merely permitting, the joy of covenant love.
- Genesis 2:24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.The union the praise of verses 7-9 moves toward - the one-flesh bond written into creation from the beginning.
- Psalm 133:1Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!The same word naim (“pleasant”) used of verse 6 - the clean, wholesome delight Scripture names good.
- Hebrews 13:4Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled.The New Testament affirming what the Song sings in verses 6-9 - the goodness and honour of love within covenant.
I Am My Beloved’s, and His Desire Is Toward Me
- Song of Solomon 6:3I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.The refrain of belonging that verse 10 takes up and deepens - here adding that his desire, too, is toward her.
- Isaiah 62:5as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.The picture of verse 10 lifted to its highest meaning - God’s own delight in His people spoken in a bridegroom’s language.
- Ephesians 5:25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.The love behind “his desire is toward me” (v. 10) - a bridegroom’s self-giving love made the very pattern of Christ and His church.
- Revelation 19:7the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.Where the bridegroom-and-bride story is going - the wedding the bride’s offering of herself (vv. 11-12) anticipates.
- Genesis 3:16thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.The rare word teshuqah (“desire”) of verse 10 sounding in its heaviest setting - here in the Song that same desire is turned, in love, the right way round.