Translation
Daughters of JERUSALEM, I have made you swear —
if you find my Love, what will you tell him?
Tell him I am faint with love.
Go to footnote numberParaphrase
I have made you swear, o products of a WHOLESOME marriage,
if you find my Love,
what will you tell him?
Tell him my Love for him consumes me.
Footnotes
1
Is the Shulammite really unable to find Solomon? Is she in need of help from the “Daughters of Jerusalem” to find him? I don’t think so. This is not a story, but a series of pictures. She has just painted a picture pertaining to openness and vulnerability, or the lack thereof on her part at one time. But she fully and completely loves Solomon even though she has, at times, struggled with being vulnerable and with accepting his overtures because of the huge socio-economic gap between them. The involvement of their daughters is this: she has made them swear to be active participants not only in the family, but also in their parents’ marriage. They can do so by taking note of how much they love each other and by highlighting that love out loud to each parent. The daughters will benefit by doing so just as much as the parents will. This is not because Solomon doubts his wife’s love, but because it is good for the daughters to notice it and comment about it. It is good for them to marvel at the fact that their parents ever got together because the socio-economic gap between them would usually have made such a union impossible.