Song of Solomon 6

Speaker labels come from the WEB translators, not the Hebrew text. Beloved is the woman, Lover is the man.

Friends

1 Where has your beloved gone, you fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?

Beloved

2 My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies.

3 I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies.

Lover

4 You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners.

5 Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead.

6 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, which have come up from the washing, of which every one has twins; not one is bereaved among them.

7 Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.

8 There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number.

9 My dove, my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother’s only daughter. She is the favorite one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines saw her, and they praised her.

10 Who is she who looks out as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners?

11 I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower.

12 Without realizing it, my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots.

Friends

13 Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you. Lover Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of Mahanaim?

Around Song of Solomon 6

Context

Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.

AI explanation

About Song of Solomon as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader

This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.

What this book is about

Spring has come, and a woman hears her beloved before she sees him: he comes leaping on the mountains, looking in at the windows. He says, “the winter is past.” She calls herself “a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys”, and says, “My beloved is mine, and I am his.”

The Song of Solomon is a series of love poems like this one. A woman and a man speak to and about each other with longing and delight, in pictures drawn from gardens, vineyards, spices and the countryside. A chorus of friends joins in at points. There is no clear storyline; the poems circle around seeking, finding and belonging.

Background

The first verse links the book with Solomon, which may mean it was written by him, for him or in his tradition. Its date is debated. Love poetry with similar imagery is known from ancient Egypt.

How Christians read it

For most of history Jews read the Song as a picture of God's love for Israel, and Christians as a picture of Christ's love for the church or for the believer. Most readers today take it first as a celebration of love between a woman and a man, which Scripture calls good. Many hold both together: human love is a gift in its own right and also a reflection of a greater love.

About this explanation

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 19 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.

Report a mistake

CommunityVoices, not sources

Readers share what this chapter means to them in the app.

See what readers say about Song of Solomon 6

World English Bible. Public-domain source and edition notes