C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Song of Solomon 1:2

Sol 1:2

From these words with which as a solo the first strophe begins:

Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth,

We at once perceive that she who here speaks is only one of many among whom Solomon’s kisses are distributed; for min is partitive, as e.g., Exo 16:27 (cf. Jer 48:32 and Isa 16:9), with the underlying phrase נשׁיקה נשׁק, osculum osculari = figere, jungere, dare. Nashak properly means to join to each other and to join together, particularly mouth to mouth. פּיהוּ is the parallel form of פּיו, and is found in prose as well as in poetry; it is here preferred for the sake of the rhythm. Böttcher prefers, with Hitzig, ישׁקני (“let him give me to drink”); but “to give to drink with kisses” is an expression unsupported.

In line 2 the expression changes into an address:

For better is thy love than wine.

Instead of “thy love,” the lxx render “thy breasts,” for they had before them the word written defectively as in the traditional text, and read דּדּיך. Even granting that the dual dadayim or dadiym could be used in the sense of the Greek μαστοί (Rev 1:13),Vid., my Handsch. Funde, Heft 2 (1862). of the breasts of a man (for which Isa 32:12, Targ., furnishes no sufficient authority); yet in the mouth of a woman it were unseemly, and also is itself absurd as the language of praise. But, on the other hand, that דּדיך is not the true reading (“for more lovely - thus he says to me - are,” etc.), R. Ismael rightly says, in reply to R. Akiba, Aboda zara 29 b, and refers to שׁמניך following (Sol 1:3), which requires the mas. for דדיך. Rightly the Gr. Venet. οἱ σοὶ ἔρωτες, for דּודים is related to אהבח, almost as ἔρως to ἀγάπη, Minne to Liebe. It is a plur. like חיּים, which, although a pluraletantum, is yet connected with the plur. of the pred. The verbal stem דוד is an abbreviated reduplicative stem (Ewald, §118. 1); the root דו appears to signify “to move by thrusts or pushes” (vid., under Psa 42:5); of a fluid, “to cause to boil up,” to which the word דּוּד, a kitchen-pot, is referred.Yet it is a question whether דד, to love, and דד, the breast (Arab. thady, with a verb thadiyi, to be thoroughly wet), are not after their nearest origin such words of feeling, caressing, prattling, as the Arab. dad, sport (also dadad, the only Arab. word which consists of the same three letters); cf. Fr. dada, hobby-horse.

It is the very same verbal stem from which דּיד (David), the beloved, and the name of the foundress of Carthage, דּידה ( = דּידון) Minna, is derived. The adj. tov appears here and at 3 a twice in its nearest primary meaning, denoting that which is pleasant to the taste and (thus particularly in Arab.) to the smell.