Chapter Seven
verses 1-6
How beautiful your sandaled feet, O prince’s daughter! Your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of a craftsman’s hands. Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine, your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies. Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are the pools of Heshbron. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, your hair is like royal tapestry. The king is held captive by its tresses. How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights.
Why would you gaze on the Shulammite as on the dance of Mahanaim? This was his question as they walked off
More likely it refers to an erotic dance, for this is exactly what follows in the context. The Daughter of Jerusalem call shulamit back for they wish her to perform an erotic dance. It must be remembered that the chorus is imaginary in the lyric idyll, and they are not really actors in the play. The imaginary chorus is brought in to explain a situation, to give a warning, or to allow for a dialogue to take place or, as is the case here, to set the stage for what follows. The request by the Daughters of Jerusalem for an erotic dance by Shulamit is really Solomon’s request, for as the following verses make clear, Shulamit is indeed dancing erotically. In 7:1-5 Shulamit is viewed as dancing, but the chorus has disappeared from the scene. She is dancing before Solomon alone. She is either dancing in the nude or wearing see-through veils. At any rate, Solomon is able to see all of her, and he begins to describe what he sees as Shulamit is dancing the Dance of the Mahanaim and displaying all her charms” (24) pages 55-57
could be translated ‘how you gaze upon Shulamith as at a dance of Mahanaim.’ The king’s observation that the maidens praise the bride. (22) page 166
the Hebrew word translated “feet” signifies step and foot, portraying her as dancing with her feet going back and forth. In describing the vibrations of her dancing thighs, Solomon points to the manifold twistings and windings of the upper part of her body by means of the thigh joints, for the Hebrew words signify movements of a circular kind. (24)
or “the curves (vibrations) of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of an artist” the Hebrew work translated “curves” refers to the thighs in motion and not the beauty curves of the thighs at rest. The entire Hebrew passage keeps pointing towards a dancing female. (24)
Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine.
Some lexical evidence from Arabic suggest the possibility that his word translated “navel” means “vulva.” However, the other two occurrences of this work in the Old Testament refer to the body in general (Proverbs 3.8) and to the umbilical cord (Ezekiel 16.4). “Navel” seems the likely meaning in 7.2, since it is a more likely image of a wine chalice or bowl, to which it is compared. On the other hand, the image of wine and wheat coupled with the reference o to the pomegranate in 8.2 with its wordplay on “drink” and “kiss” and the prior wordplay on “love” and “mandrakes” and then on “doors” and “openings,” suggest that the word for “navel” may be a euphemism for her more intimate sexuality. This euphemism would be consistent with the texts on lovemaking from Sumerian literature, which predate the Song. In that literature a woman’s sexual arousal is praised as an intoxicating drink to the lover. In ancient Egyptian and Syrian are depicting lovers, the vulva and the navel are often interchangeable in their schematic representations. But consistent with the difference in tone from this other literature, the song expresses such eroticism more beautifully and indirectly. The container could also be translate “bowl” and be reminiscent of ancient schematics of the female body with the navel (and sometimes vulva) represented as a bowl. The adjective “round” may allude to the roundness of the moon and thus bring a beautiful association to the beauty of the chalice. (22a) p 218
Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies.
in Syria, the perfect skin was considered to be that which could be compared in colour to the yellowish-whit of wheat after it had been threshed and winnowed. (the five megolith) page 26
Thus when Solomon says simple, “Love is in the tender things delighted in’” he is saying that the feelings and intentions of love flow through all of the tender affection she gives to him. Her inner love prompts outward expression. Her heart and body are integrated in her giving, and her tender giving from love comforts and delights him. (22a) page 220
That is probably true. He is also getting very hot for her body.
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