Translation
Your head
Go to footnote numberis over you
Go to footnote numberjust like MOUNT CARMEL.
Go to footnote numberYour hair is like anything purple;
Go to footnote numberthe king is held captive by its flowing ringlets.
Go to footnote numberParaphrase
Your priorities are governed by FRUITFULNESS;
the least valuable part of you is of royal quality; I am held captive by every small detail about you.
Footnotes
1
“Your Head” is not likely to refer to leadership since it is the husband talking to the wife, so I take it as priorities.
2: “over you”
The word used here is simply the Hebrew preposition meaning “on, over, or against.” The authors (Solomon and the Shulammite) could just have easily written, “your head is like Carmel,” but for some reason they inserted the word “on/over.” There was something they wanted to communicate through that preposition. From it a number of translations find the concept of the verb “crown,” i.e. “your head crowns you like Mount Carmel.” That meaning is assumed from the context, as is often the case with Hebrew, and does most likely communicate the right idea. However, I refrain from inserting the word “crowns” because it is not necessary; the ideas expressed by “over” include dominance, authority and control.
3
The name Mount Carmel means “garden” or “fruitful field” even though it was a mountain. The point is that it was a fruitful place.
4
The text says, “your hair is like purple.” One must insert a noun to go with purple, such as purple cloth, or purple garments, etc. or one can eliminate the word “like.” Eliminating the word “like” is taking something away that is present in Hebrew, but it does retain the emphasis of the phrase, which is to highlight the symbolism of purple. There is one more way to communicate the meaning of this passage without doing harm to the Hebrew text, and that is to say, “your hair is like anything purple.” That is exactly what the text intends to communicate, and it keeps the emphasis on the symbolism of purple without caring what that item is.
Re: the imagery: Purple was the color of royalty because the purple dye was painstakingly extracted from the shell of a clam and was thus very expensive. Only the richest of the rich could afford it.
5: “flowing ringlets”
The word used here means “hollow, or flowing down.” A lock, tress or ringlet of hair fits because of how hair flows down.
Re; the imagery: A tress is a braid or lock of hair, and hair in those days was often a symbol for something of little value.