C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Song of Solomon 8:3-4

Sol 8:3-4

Resigning herself now dreamily to the idea that Solomon is her brother, whom she may freely and openly kiss, and her teacher besides, with whom she may sit in confidential intercourse under her mother’s eye, she feels herself as if closely embraced by him, and calls from a distance to the daughters of Jerusalem not to disturb this her happy enjoyment: 3 His left hand is under my head,    And his right doth embrace me: 4 I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem,    That ye awake not and disturb not love    Till she please!

Instead of   תּהת ל, “underneath,” there is here, as usual, תּהת (cf. Sol 8:5). Instead of אם ... ואם in the adjuration, there is here the equivalent מה ... ומה; the interrogative מה, which in the Arab. ma becomes negat., appears here, as at Job 31:1, on the way toward this change of meaning. The per capreas vel per cervas agri is wanting, perhaps because the natural side of love is here broken, and the ἔρως strives up into ἀγάπη. The daughters of Jerusalem must not break in upon this holy love-festival, but leave it to its own course.