10 I am a wall, and my breasts like towers, then I was in his eyes like one who found peace.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The bride herself replies with the pride of innocence and virtue already crowned. She has shown herself to be such a fortress-wall as her brothers have alluded to, and her reward has been the royal favor.
I am a wall, and my breasts like towers - I am become marriageable, and I stood in need of the defense I have now in my beloved; and as soon as I was so, and became pleasing in the eyes of my beloved, I was given to him in marriage, and have ever since found favor in his sight. As soon then as my sister is in my state, let a proper match be sought out for her. These expressions show the solicitude which the bride felt for her sister, and in her favor she wishes to interest her spouse.
(g) I [am] a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favour.
(g) The Church promises fidelity and constancy.
I am a wall,.... The words of the little sister, or Gentile church; either wishing she was what was supposed, and desiring to be in a well settled state, "O that I was a wall!" or as asserting (d) that she was in such a state, well walled; God was a wall of fire about her; salvation was appointed as walls and bulwarks to her; she was one of the two walls Christ was a cornerstone unto, and cemented together; and was a wall built up of lively stones, of true believers, built on Christ, the foundation; and established in the doctrine of grace; and constant and immovable in her love to Christ;
and my breasts like towers; round, plump, and high; signifying that she was now marriageable; and the time of her being presented as a chaste virgin to Christ, and of her open espousals to him, was now come: of ministers of the word, of the Scriptures, and of the ordinances of the Gospel, as signified by breasts; see Gill on Song 4:5; which may be said to be "like towers": ministers of the word, because set for the defence of the Gospel; the Scriptures, because an armoury from whence saints are supplied with armour, to repel Satan's temptations, refute errors, and defend truth; and the ordinances of the Gospel, because they stand firm and immovable against all the efforts of men to subvert and abolish them; and these are peculiar to the Gentile church, under the Gospel dispensation;
then was I in his eyes as one that found favour; from the time that the Gentile church became a wall, firmly built on Christ, and was formed into a church state, and had a settled ministry and Gospel ordinances, she became acceptable to Christ, and was admitted to near communion with him; and not only her person, but her services, met with a favourable acceptance from him; and these privileges and blessings were the fruit of his love, layout, and good will, he bore to her; which before was secret and hidden, but now her breasts being fashioned, her time was a time of love, of the open love of Christ to her, and of her espousals to him: and when, as the words may be rendered, she was "as one that found peace" (e); peace being made by the blood of Christ, and the partition wall broken down between Jew and Gentile, and they peaceably joined together in a Gospel church state; and when she enjoyed inward peace and tranquillity of mind, which is found in Christ, the word and ordinances; even all kind of prosperity, which peace, with the Hebrews, includes; every spiritual blessing, as reconciliation, justification, pardon, adoption, and eternal life, which are all the fruits and effects of divine favour, good will, grace, and love.
(d) "Hoc est, nolite dubitare ultrum murus sum", Ambros. Enarrat. in Psal. cxviii. octon. 22. p. 1087. (e) Sept. "pacem", Pagninus, Montanus, Marckius, Michaelis.
The Gentile Church's joy at its free admission to gospel privileges (Acts 15:30-31). She is one wall in the spiritual temple of the Holy Ghost, the Hebrew Church is the other; Jesus Christ, the common foundation, joins them (Ephesians 2:11-22).
breasts . . . towers--alluding to the silver palace, which the bridal virgins proposed to build on her (Song 8:9). "Breasts" of consolation (Isaiah 66:11); faith and love (1-Thessalonians 5:8); opposed to her previous state, "no breasts" (Song 8:8; 2-Thessalonians 1:3). Thus Ezekiel 16:46, Ezekiel 16:61 was fulfilled, both Samaria and the Gentiles being joined to the Jewish gospel Church.
favour--rather, "peace." The Gentile Church too is become the Shulamite (Song 6:13), or peace-enjoying bride of Solomon, that is, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace (Romans 5:1; Ephesians 2:14). Reject not those whom God accepts (Numbers 11:28; Luke 9:49; Acts 15:8-9). Rather, superadd to such every aid and privilege (Song 8:9).
10 I was a wall,
And my breasts like towers;
Then I became in his eyes
Like one who findeth peace.
In the language of prose, the statement would be: Your conduct is good and wise, as my own example shows; of me also ye thus faithfully took care; and that I met this your solicitude with strenuous self-preservation, has become, to my joy and yours, the happiness of my life. That in this connection not אני חומה, but חומה אני has to be used, is clear: she compares herself with her sister, and the praise she takes to herself she takes to the honour of her brothers. The comparison of her breasts to towers is suggested by the comparison of her person to a wall; Kleuker rightly remarks that here the comparison is not of thing with thing, but of relation with relation: the breasts were those of her person, as the towers were of the wall, which, by virtue of the power of defence which they conceal within themselves, never permit the enemy, whose attention they attract, to approach them. The two substantival clauses, murus et ubera mea instar turrium, have not naturally a retrospective signification, as they would in a historical connection (vid., under Genesis 2:10); but they become retrospective by the following "then I became," like Deuteronomy 26:5, by the historical tense following, where, however, it is to be remarked that the expression, having in itself no relation to time, which is incapable of being expressed in German, mentions the past not in a way that excludes the present, but as including it. She was a wall, and her breasts like the towers, i.e., all seductions rebounded from her, and ventured not near her awe-inspiring attractions; then (אז, temporal, but at the same time consequent; thereupon, and for this reason, as at Psalm 40:8; Jeremiah 22:15, etc.) she became in his (Solomon's) eyes as one who findeth peace. According to the shepherd-hypothesis, she says here: he deemed it good to forbear any further attempts, and to let me remain in peace (Ewald, Hitz., and others). But how is that possible? מצא שׁלום בעיני is a variation of the frequently occurring מצא חן בעיני, which is used especially of a woman gaining the affections of a man, Esther 2:17; Deuteronomy 24:1; Jeremiah 31:2 f.; and the expression here used, "thus I was in his eyes as one who findeth peace" is only the more circumstantial expression for, "then I found (אז מצאתי) in his eyes peace," which doubtless means more than: I brought it to this, that he left me further unmolested; שׁלום in this case, as syn. of חן, means inward agreement, confidence, friendship, as at Psalm 41:10; there it means, as in the salutation of peace and in a hundred other cases, a positive good. And why should she use שׁלום instead of חן, but that she might form a play upon the name which she immediately, Song 8:11, thereafter utters, שׁלמה, which signifies, 1-Chronicles 22:9, "The man of peace." That Shulamith had found shalom (peace) with Shelomoh (Solomon), cannot be intended to mean that uninjured she escaped from him, but that she had entered into a relation to him which seemed to her a state of blessed peace. The delicate description, "in his eyes," is designed to indicate that she appeared to him in the time of her youthful discipline as one finding peace. The כ is כ veritatis, i.e., the comparison of the fact with its idea, Isaiah 29:2, or of the individual with the general and common, Isaiah 13:6; Ezekiel 26:10; Zac 14:3. Here the meaning is, that Shulamith appeared to him corresponding to the idea of one finding peace, and thus as worthy to find peace with him. One "finding peace" is one who gains the heart of a man, so that he enters into a relation of esteem and affection for her. This generalization of the idea also opposes the notion of a history of seduction. מוחאת is from the ground-form matsiat, the parallel form to מוצאת, 2-Samuel 18:22. Solomon has won her, not by persuasion or violence; but because she could be no other man's, he entered with her into the marriage covenant of peace (cf. Proverbs 2:17 with Isaiah 54:10).
I am - These seem to be the words of the Jewish church. O Lord, by thy grace I am what thou wouldst have my sister to be, and therefore humbly hope, according to thy promise to her in that case, thou wilt build upon me a palace of silver. Towers - Which stand out from and above the wall, and are an ornament and defence to it. Then - When by his grace I was made a wall, he was well - pleased with me, and with his own workmanship in me.
*More commentary available at chapter level.