TEXT [Commentary]

black diamond   XVI.   Sixteenth Love Poem: In the Nut Grove (6:11-12)

Young Woman

11 I went down to the grove of walnut trees

and out to the valley to see the new spring growth,

to see whether the grapevines had budded

or the pomegranates were in bloom.

12 Before I realized it,

my strong desires had taken me to the chariot of a noble man.[*]

NOTES

6:11 grove of walnut trees. The Heb. word ’egoz [TH93, ZH100] certainly means “nut” and perhaps, as suggested by the NLT, specifically the walnut. No matter what type of grove, the point made in the expository section of the commentary about cultivated countryside settings being connected with the theme of intimate union still stands. However, Pope (1978:574-578) takes the point further, by commenting that there is a connection between the nut and the genitalia of both men and women: the whole nut represents the male gland, and the open nut, the woman’s vulva. Even apart from the imagery of the nut, the verse as a whole is a coy suggestion of intimate relations between the man and the woman.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The connection of these two verses to what precedes and follows is a matter of debate. In other words, my Poem Sixteen could be a continuation of Poem Fifteen or the beginning of Poem Seventeen, but there are no compelling connections with either. For this reason, I treat these two verses separately. Even if this assessment is wrong and these two verses belong to one of the other poems, it really makes no major difference to our understanding of the message of the text, since we are concerned with the exposition of the images and themes and the description of the emotions expressed, rather than being intent on recovering an elusive plot line (see Introduction).

In these verses, the woman is speaking, and she is sharing an experience. She talks about going into the grove of walnut trees and examining the new spring growth. By this time in the Song, we are well aware of the meaning of such a setting. While the city is hostile to love, any type of garden or cultivated countryside setting is conducive to intimacy. The time period specified is spring, which is a time perennially associated with love. After all, the spring follows the winter. It is a time to remove clothes, not put them on. It is a time of new fertility, also suggestive of sexuality. Spring brings wonderful fragrances into play, particularly in the garden. Indeed, this poem describes the woman as going down to see the new buds and blossoms of particularly fragrant plants like the grape and the pomegranate. Grapes and pomegranates also are edible fruits that suggest another sense, that of taste. As we have seen throughout the Song, love is an emotion that expresses itself in physical union involving all the senses.

Thus far everything is as we might expect in this short love poem. However, when we come to verse 12, we encounter an exegetical conundrum that has occupied the attention and the imagination of professional interpreters for centuries. The ancient versions, such as the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, as well as some modern English versions (NIV, NRSV) may be compared in order to see that neither interpreters nor translators can agree on the meaning here. Even an attempt at a literal translation is difficult because there are questions about the meaning of the words, as well as their syntactical relationship. (For all the technical issues concerning this matter, see Longman 2001:184-187).

The NLT’s attempt at translating this verse is as defensible as any other and more defensible than some. But if it is correct, what does it mean? We should be very hesitant to press too many of the verse’s details for meaning (see Mulder 1992). The first colon of the verse (“before I realized it”) expresses surprise and perhaps some confusion. Her surprise comes with the fact that she is with her beloved and in his chariot. Here, as throughout, we must remember that this is poetry that expresses emotions and not the report of an actual experience. If it were the latter, we would be really hard pressed to explain how she could so abruptly find herself transported from the grove of walnut trees to the chariot of the man she loves. She is in a reverie. The chariot perhaps ought to be compared to the “carriage” of 3:7-10. She is alone with her man, and her statement here expresses her strong passion for him.