Song of Solomon 1:7,8

Song of Solomon 1:7 is spoken by the Shulammite, asking her lover where she will find him at noon, and Song of Solomon 1:8 is the mocking comment of the daughters of Jerusalem. Martineau, indeed, supposes that the lover actually appears here, at the king's residence in Jerusalem, and she asks him where she can find him feeding his flocks. But that seems unmeaning if he was a shepherd of En-gedi, as Martineau supposes; and in any case, he would not be feeding his flocks in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Budde supposes that this is a song put into the mouth of the newly married couple, in order that the marriage, which really was a mere matter of arrangement, should be made to appear to be the result of previous affection. This, therefore, is an account of a lovers" meeting before marriage. But if the universal custom was to arrange marriages in this way it seems obvious that no one would wish to make the thing appear otherwise, in fact it would be a breach of the convenancesto hint at such a thing. There seems no alternative but to suppose that the speaker is here musing upon her absent lover and asks aloud where she could find him. She longs to go to seek him. Some however take the two verses to be a reference to the past, while Oettli supposes them to be an interlude brought in to shew who the two lovers are.