Song of Solomon 7:13

The mandrakes give a smell Heb. had-dûdhâ îm(LXX, οἱ μανδραγόραι), lit. -love plants." The mandrake is fully described in Tristram, Nat. Hist. pp. 466 ff. It belongs to the family of plants to which the potato belongs. The flowers are cup-shaped, of a rich purple colour. The fruit has a peculiar but decidedly not unpleasant smell, and a pleasant, sweet taste. In Groser's Script. Nat. Hist., Mariti is quoted to the following effect: "The fruit when ripe, in the beginning of May, is of the size and colour of a small apple, exceedingly ruddy and of a most agreeable odour. Our guide thought us fools for suspecting it to be unwholesome. He ate it freely himself, and it is generally valued by the inhabitants as exhilarating their spirits." It is mentioned here as denoting the time of year, May, the time of the wheat harvest, or for its pleasant smell, not, as in Genesis 30:14-16, as an aphrodisiac.

and at our gatesare allmanner of pleasantfruits] Rather, over our doors. This would seem to indicate that in village houses it was the custom to lay up fruits on shelves or in cupboards placed above the doorways.

pleasantfruits] or, as R.V., precious fruits. Cp. ch. Song of Solomon 4:13; Song of Solomon 4:16.

which I have laid up This relative clause refers to the old fruits, as the new fruits were only now ripening. If Solomon were the bridegroom it is difficult to see how the shepherdess could have laid up fruits for him, as she had not been home since he carried her away.