The Song of Songs 3:1-9

The Lost Lover is Found

The Beloved about Her Lover:

3:1 All night long on my bed

I longed for my lover.

I longed for him but he never appeared.

3:2 “I will arise and look all around throughout the town,

and throughout the streets and squares;

I will search for my beloved.”

I searched for him but I did not find him.

3:3 The night watchmen found me – the ones who guard the city walls.

“Have you seen my beloved?”

3:4 Scarcely had I passed them by

when I found my beloved!

I held onto him tightly and would not let him go

until I brought him to my mother’s house,

to the bedroom chamber of the one who conceived me.

The Adjuration Refrain

The Beloved to the Maidens:

3:5 I admonish you, O maidens of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles and by the young does of the open fields:

“Do not awake or arouse love until it pleases!”

The Royal Wedding Procession

The Speaker:

3:6 Who is this coming up from the desert

like a column of smoke,

like a fragrant billow of myrrh and frankincense,

every kind of fragrant powder of the traveling merchants?

3:7 Look! It is Solomon’s portable couch!

It is surrounded by sixty warriors,

some of Israel’s mightiest warriors.

3:8 All of them are skilled with a sword,

well-trained in the art of warfare.

Each has his sword at his side,

to guard against the terrors of the night.

3:9 King Solomon made a sedan chair for himself

of wood imported from Lebanon.