Song of Solomon 2:7

I charge you I adjure you.

by the roes, and by the hinds of the field The tsěbhî, -roe," is according to Tristram (Fauna and Flora of Palestine, p. 5) the gazelle, Gazella dorcas. He says, "It is extremely common in every part of the country S. of Lebanon. I have seen it in the Mount of Olives close to Jerusalem." The ayyâlâh= -hind" is the female of the ayyâl, which, according to Post, in Hastings" Dict. of Bible, is the Cervus dama, the true -fallow deer." Tristram also thinks the fallow deer is meant, or perhaps the red deer, but the latter has not been found in Palestine.

that ye stir not up, &c. Rather, as R.V., that ye stir not up, nor awaken love, until it please. The adjuration does not refer to the rousing of a lover, but of the passion of love. The meaning is this. The speaker adjures the daughters of Jerusalem not to attempt any more to arouse or awake love. It should be allowed to rest until it awake of itself; and probably they are adjured by the gazelles and the hinds of the field because of the shyness and timidity of these creatures, or as Delitzsch suggests, because of their absolute freedom. The daughters of Jerusalem had been attempting to awake love for Solomon in her heart by fulsome praises of him, and she adjures them thus in order that they may cease from their vain attempt. This beautiful verse recurs at Song of Solomon 3:5 and Song of Solomon 8:4, and forms a kind of refrain which marks the close of certain sections of the book. It also expresses one of the main theses of it, viz. that a true and worthy love should owe nothing to excitements coming from without, but should be spontaneous and as unfettered as the deer upon the hills.