9 My beloved is like a roe or a young hart. Behold, he stands behind our wall! He looks in at the windows. He glances through the lattice.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Like a roe - Gazelle (compare Proverbs 5:19 note). The points of comparison here are beauty of form, grace, and speed of movement. In 2-Samuel 2:18; 1-Chronicles 12:8, princes are compared to "gazelles."
Wall - The clay-built wall of the house or vineyard of the bride's family, different from the strong wall of a city or fortress Song 5:7; Song 8:9-10.
Looketh forth at the windows - The meaning evidently is, that he is looking in at, or through, the window from the outside. Compare Song 5:4 note.
Shewing himself - Or, peering. Some, taking the marginal rendering, imagine that the radiant face of the beloved is thus compared to some beautiful flower entangled in the lattice-work which protects the opening of the window, from where he gazes down upon the bride.
He standeth behind our wall - This may refer to the wall by which the house was surrounded, the space between which and the house constituted the court. He was seen first behind the wall, and then in the court; and lastly came to the window of his bride's chamber.
My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he (e) standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, gazing himself through the (f) lattice.
(e) For as his divinity was hidden under the cloak of our flesh.
(f) So that we cannot have full knowledge of him in this life.
My beloved is like a roe, or a young hart,.... The church, upon the swift and speedy approach of Christ unto her, compares him to these creatures; which are well known for their swiftness (l) in running, and agility in leaping, as before observed: and, besides these things, Christ may be compared to them on other accounts; they are pleasant and lovely, choice and valuable; bear an antipathy to serpents, which they easily overcome; are very good for food, and very agreeable, and are long lived creatures (m); Christ is lovely and amiable in his person, and high in the esteem of his divine Father, angels and men; is choice and excellent in his nature, offices, and grace; bears an antipathy to the old serpent, the devil, whose works and powers he came to destroy, and has got an entire victory over them; and is very agreeable food to faith; his flesh is meat indeed, and the more so through his sufferings and death; as the flesh of those creatures is said to be the more tender and agreeable, by being hunted; and Christ, though dead, is alive, and lives for evermore;
behold, he standeth behind our wall; not the middle wall of the ceremonial law, behind which, Christ, under the Old Testament dispensation, stood, showing himself to believers; nor the wall of our humanity he partook of, when he came in the flesh, and under which his glorious deity was in some measure covered and hid; but rather the wall of our hearts, Jeremiah 4:19; the hardness, infidelity, and carnal reasonings of it, which are so many walls of separation between Christ and his people; behind which he stands, showing his resentment of them, and in order to demolish them, and get admittance: he is represented here, as nearer than when she first saw him, even at her very home;
he looketh forth at the windows; this is coming nearer still; for, by the manner of the expression, it seems that he was within doors, since he is said, not to look through the windows, but to look forth at them, meaning the ordinances; which are that to the church as windows to a house, the means of letting in light into the souls of men; and where Christ shows himself, in his glory and beauty, as kings and great personages look out at windows to show themselves to their people: though Christ may also be said to look in at, those windows, to observe the behaviour of his people in his house and ordinances, with what attention, affection, faith, and reverence, they wait upon him in them;
showing himself through the lattice; by which may be meant the same things, only a larger and clearer discovery of Christ in them, of which ordinances are the means; and yet, unless Christ shows himself through them, he cannot be seen in them: and a "behold" being prefixed to these gradual discoveries of himself, show them to be wonderful! a glance of him behind the wall is surprising; his looking in at the windows still more so; but his showing himself, in all his glories and excellencies, through the lattice, is enough to throw into the greatest rapture, to fill with joy unspeakable and full of glory! Some render the word "flourishing" (n), like a rose or lily, or like a vine, or jessamine; which grow up by a window or lattice, and, seen through them, took very pleasant and delightful. But the allusion is rather to the quick sighted roe, or young hart; which, as it is remarkable for its swiftness, referred to, Song 2:8, so for the sharpness of its sight; Pliny (o) says it is never dim sighted; it has its name "dorcas", in Greek, from its sight.
(l) "Cervi veloces", Virgil. Aeneid. 5. v. 253. (m) Vid. Pausaniae Arcad. sive l. 8. p. 472. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 32. Aelian de Animal. l. 2. c. 9. Solin. Polyhistor. c. 31, Frantz. Animal, Sacr. par. 1. c. 15. (n) "efflorescens", Piscator, Michaelis, so Ainsworth. (o) Nat. Hist. l. 28. c. 11.
he standeth--after having bounded over the intervening space like a roe. He often stands near when our unbelief hides Him from us (Genesis 28:16; Revelation 3:14-20). His usual way; long promised and expected; sudden at last: so, in visiting the second temple (Malachi 3:1); so at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-2); so in visiting an individual soul, Zaccheus (Luke 19:5-6; John 3:8); and so, at the second coming (Matthew 24:48, Matthew 24:50; 2-Peter 3:4, 2-Peter 3:10). So it shall be at His second coming (1-Thessalonians 5:2-3).
wall--over the cope of which He is first seen; next, He looks through (not forth; for He is outside) at the windows, glancing suddenly and stealthily (not as English Version, "showing Himself") through the lattice. The prophecies, types, &c., were lattice glimpses of Him to the Old Testament Church, in spite of the wall of separation which sin had raised (John 8:56); clearer glimpses were given by John Baptist, but not unclouded (John 1:26). The legal wall of partition was not to be removed until His death (Ephesians 2:14-15; Hebrews 10:20). Even now, He is only seen by faith, through the windows of His Word and the lattice of ordinances and sacraments (Luke 24:35; John 14:21); not full vision (1-Corinthians 13:12); an incentive to our looking for His second coming (Isaiah 33:17; Titus 2:13).
9 My beloved is like a gazelle,
Or a young one of the harts.
Lo, there he stands behind our wall!
He looks through the windows,
Glances through the lattices.
The figure used in Song 2:8 is continued in Song 2:9. צבי is the gazelle, which is thus designated after its Arab. name ghazāl, which has reached us probably through the Moorish-Spanish gazela (distinct from "ghasele," after the Pers. ghazal, love-poem). עפר is the young hart, like the Arab. ghufar (ghafar), the young chamois, probably from the covering of young hair; whence also the young lion may be called כּפיר. Regarding the effect of או passing from one figure to another, vid., under Song 2:7. The meaning would be plainer were Song 2:9 joined to Song 2:8, for the figures illustrate quick-footed speed (2-Samuel 2:18; 1-Chronicles 12:8; cf. Psalm 18:34 with Habakkuk 3:19 and Isaiah 35:6). In Song 2:9 he comes with the speed of the gazelle, and his eyes seek for the unforgotten one. כּתל (from כּתל, compingere, condensare; whence, e.g., Arab. mukattal, pressed together, rounded, ramass; vid., regarding R. כת at Psalm 87:6), Aram. כּוּתל (Joshua 2:15; Targ. word for קיר), is meant of the wall of the house itself, not of the wall surrounding it. Shulamith is within, in the house: her beloved, standing behind the wall, stands without, before the house (Tympe: ad latus aversum parietis, viz., out from it), and looks through the windows, - at one time through this one, at another through that one, - that he might see her and feast his eyes on her. We have here two verbs from the fulness of Hebrews. synon. for one idea of seeing. השׁגּיח, from שׁגח, occurring only three times in the O.T., refers, in respect of the roots ש, שך, שק, to the idea of piercing or splitting (whence also שׁגּע, to be furious, properly pierced, percitum esse; cf. oestrus, sting of a gadfly = madness, Arab. transferred to hardiness = madness), and means fixing by reflexion and meditation; wherefore השׁגּחח in post-bibl. Hebrews. is the name for Divine Providence. הציץ, elsewhere to twinkle and to bloom, appears only here in the sense of seeing, and that of the quick darting forward of the glance of the eye, as blick glance and blitz lightning (blic) are one word; "he saw," says Goethe in Werther, "the glance of the powder" (Weigand).
(Note: In this sense: to look sharply toward, is הציץ (Talm.) - for Grtz alone a proof that the Song is of very recent date; but this word belongs, like סמדר, to the old Hebrews. still preserved in the Talm.)
The plurs. fenestrae and transennae are to be understood also as synechdoche totius pro parte, which is the same as the plur. of categ.; but with equal correctness we conceive of him as changing his standing place. חלּון is the window, as an opening in the wall, from חלל, perforare. חרכּים we combine most certainly (vid., Proverbs 12:27) with (Arab.) khark, fissura, so that the idea presents itself of the window broken through the wall, or as itself broken through; for the window in the country there consists for the most part of a pierced wooden frame of a transparent nature, - not (as one would erroneously conclude, from the most significant name of a window שׂבכה, now schubbâke, from שׂבך, to twist, to lattice, to close after the manner of our Venetian blinds) of rods or boards laid crosswise. הציץ accords with the looking out through the pierced places of such a window, for the glances of his eye are like the penetrating rays of light.
Like a roe - In swiftness. He is coming to me with all speed and will not tarry a moment beyond the proper season. He standeth behind - And while he doth for wise reasons forbear to come; he is not far from us. Both this and the following phrases may denote the obscure manner of Christ's manifesting himself to his people, under the law, in comparison of his discoveries in the gospel. The window - This phrase, and that through the lattess, intimate that the church does indeed see Christ, but, as through a glass, darkly, as it is said even of gospel - revelations, 1-Corinthians 13:12, which was much more true of legal administrations.
*More commentary available at chapter level.