Cânticos 6

ARC · Chapter 6/8

1Para onde foi o teu amado, ó mais formosa entre as mulheres? para onde virou a vista o teu amado, e o buscaremos comtigo?

2O meu amado desceu ao seu jardim, aos canteiros da especiaria, para se apascentar nos jardins e para colher os lyrios.

3Eu sou do meu amado, e o meu amado é meu: elle se apascenta entre os lyrios.

4Formosa és, amiga minha, como Tirza, aprazivel como Jerusalem, formidavel como um exercito com bandeiras.

5Desvia de mim os teus olhos, porque elles me perturbam. O teu cabello é como o rebanho das cabras que pastam em Gilead.

6Os teus dentes são como o rebanho d'ovelhas que sobem do lavadouro, e todas produzem gemeos, e não ha esteril entre ellas.

7Como um pedaço de romã, assim são as tuas faces entre as tuas tranças.

8Sessenta são as rainhas, e oitenta as concubinas, e as virgens sem numero.

9Porém uma é a minha pomba, a minha perfeita, a unica de sua mãe, e a mais querida de aquella que a pariu: vendo-a, as filhas a chamarão bemaventurada, as rainhas e as concubinas a louvarão.

10Quem é esta que apparece como a alva do dia, formosa como a lua, lustrosa como o sol, formidavel como um exercito com bandeiras?

11Desci ao jardim das nogueiras, para ver os novos fructos do valle, a ver se floresciam as vides e brotavam as romeiras.

12Antes de eu o sentir, me poz a minha alma nos carros do meu povo voluntario.

13Volta, volta, ó Sulamitha, volta, volta, para que nós te vejamos. Porque olhas para a Sulamitha como para as fileiras de dois exercitos?

📖 Chapter study

Summary

The daughters of Jerusalem ask where the lover has gone, and the beloved answers that he has gone down to his garden. The lover then returns to praising her unique beauty, comparing her to countless queens and concubines, yet saying that she alone is perfect.

Explanation

The beloved's answer shows that she knows exactly where to find the one she loves — a reaffirmation of the security and trust that exists in the relationship after the search in the previous chapter. The comparison to "sixty queens and eighty concubines" may reflect hyperbole drawn from Solomon's court (1 Kings 11 mentions seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines), used here poetically to emphasize that, among them all, the beloved is unmatched and unique. Application for today: amid all the comparisons the world offers, true love chooses and treasures one person as unique and irreplaceable.

Fun facts

  • The city of Tirzah, used here alongside Jerusalem as a standard of beauty, was the capital of the northern kingdom (Israel) before the building of Samaria, as noted in 1 Kings 16:23-24.
  • The term "Shulammite," used for the beloved in this chapter, may be the feminine form of "Solomon" or a reference to the village of Shunem, showing how the text plays with names and identities.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Cânticos 6:1The other young women, convinced by the description in the previous chapter, now offer to help search for him — admiration for him has turned into active cooperation in her search.
  2. Cânticos 6:2Her answer suggests he is not as lost as she feared in chapter 5: he simply went to the garden, a meeting place already familiar throughout the book, not gone for good.
  3. Cânticos 6:3Repeating the mutual declaration of belonging from chapter 2, with the order of the phrases reversed, closes the cycle of searching and reunion that occupied much of the previous chapters.
  4. Cânticos 6:4Tirzah was the capital of the Northern Kingdom before Samaria, and mentioning it alongside Jerusalem suggests two cities admired for their beauty at the time, used together as the highest reference for splendor.
  5. Cânticos 6:5Saying that her gaze “overcomes” him is a way of admitting vulnerability in the face of the intensity of his own feeling, almost as if she had physical power over him just by looking.
  6. Cânticos 6:6Repeating almost the same description of the teeth already used in chapter 4 shows how the poem reuses whole blocks of praise, a common device in the repetitive oral poetry of the time.
  7. Cânticos 6:7This near-exact repetition of an image from chapter 4 about the cheeks reinforces how certain passages in the book work as poetic refrains, reappearing at different moments of the narrative.
  8. Cânticos 6:8The mention of “threescore queens, and fourscore concubines” reflects the real custom of polygamy in the courts of that time, but the text uses this contrast precisely to say that, among so many possible women, for the beloved there is only one who is unique and irreplaceable.
  9. Cânticos 6:9Calling her the “only one” amid the queens and concubines mentioned in the previous verse is the high point of the praise: even surrounded by other options, he singles her out as incomparable among them all.
  10. Cânticos 6:10Repeating the image of “an army with banners” from verse 4 to describe her effect on those who see her suggests an almost overwhelming impact, as if her presence commanded respect the same way a military force would.
  11. Cânticos 6:11This scene of inspecting the orchard to see whether the plants were blooming can be read either literally, as an actual walk, or as an indirect image of curiosity and desire, a pattern common in the book.
  12. Cânticos 6:12This verse is one of the most obscure in the book in terms of translation — the exact meaning of “the chariots of Amminadib” is uncertain, and different versions and scholars translate this Hebrew expression in quite different ways.
  13. Cânticos 6:13This is the first time the beloved is called “Shulamite,” probably a reference to her origin or family, more a name than a title of nobility.

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