Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
Thy shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits; Henna with spikenard plants,
The produce of the garden is pomegranates; with all the best fruits, henna and spikenard,
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphor, with spikenard,
Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits: henna with spikenard plants,
Thy shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits; henna with spikenard plants,
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates - This seems to refer to the fecundity of the bride or Jewish queen; to the former it would be a prediction; to the latter, a statement of what had already taken place. The word פרדס pardes, which we translate an orchard, is the same which has given birth to our paradise, a garden of pleasure. The other expressions, in this and the following verse, seem to refer wholly to matters of a connubial nature.
Orchard - This is the renderlng here and in Ecclesiastes 2:5 of "pardes" (see Nehemiah 2:8 note). The pomegranate was for the Jews a sacred fruit, and a characteristic product of the land of promise (compare Exodus 28:33-34; Numbers 20:5; Deuteronomy 8:8; 1 Kings 7:18, 1 Kings 7:20). It is frequently mentioned in the Song, and always in connection with the bride. It abounds to this day in the ravines of the Lebanon.
Camphire - Cyprus. See Sol 1:14 note.
Songs 4:13-15
Seven kinds of spices (some of them with Indian names, e. g. aloes, spikenard, saffron) are enumerated as found in this symbolic garden. They are for the most part pure exotics which have formed for countless ages articles of commerce in the East, and were brought at that time in Solomon's ships from southern Arabia, the great Indian Peninsula, and perhaps the islands of the Indian Archipelago. The picture here is best regarded as a purely ideal one, having no corresponding reality but in the bride herself. The beauties and attractions of both north and south - of Lebanon with its streams of sparkling water and fresh mountain air, of Engedi with its tropical climate and henna plantations, of the spice-groves of Arabia Felix, and of the rarest products of the distant mysterious Ophir - all combine to furnish one glorious representation, "Thou art all fair!"
4:13 Plants - Believers, which are planted in thee, are like the plants or fruits of an orchard, which are pleasant to the eye, and delicious to the taste or smell, whereby he signifies the variety and excellency of the gifts and graces in the several members of the church.Spikenard - Which he mentions here with camphire, and in the next verse with saffron, because it is mixed with both these, and being so mixed, yields. the more grateful smell.