Song of Solomon 2:2

Love] The original has 'loves,' i.e. expressions of love, repeated kisses and embraces.

He will hot suffer her to depreciate her own value: compared with other women she is a lily among thorns (Proverbs 31:29). The Huleh lily, in the north of the Holy Land, grows in the midst of thorns, which lacerate the hands of the flower-gatherers. The soil near Bethlehem, in the S., is enamelled with lilies and covered almost everywhere with dwarf thorns.

3-7. In this strife of mutual compliments she now likens him to the beautiful, flowering, fruit-bearing apple tree, which gives a welcome shade, gratifies the sense of taste, and is to Orientals a symbol of love.