Cantar de los Cantares 6

VBL · Chapter 6/8

1¿Dónde ha ido tu amor, oh, la más bella de las mujeres? ¿En qué dirección se fue, para que podamos buscarlo contigo?

2Mi amor ha bajado a su jardín, a sus parterres de especias. Le gusta comer en los jardines y deshojar lirios.

3¡Yo soy de mi amor, y mi amor es mío! Él es el que se alimenta entre los lirios.

4Eres hermosa, querida, tan bonita como Tirzah, tan encantadora como Jerusalén. ¡Te ves asombrosa!

5Por favor, aparta tus ojos de mí: ¡me están volviendo loco! Tu pelo baja como un rebaño de cabras que desciende del monte Galaad.

6Tus dientes son tan blancos como un rebaño de ovejas recién esquiladas y lavadas. No te falta ninguno: ¡todos están perfectamente emparejados!

7Tus mejillas son del color del rubor de las granadas detrás de tu velo.

8Puede haber sesenta reinas y ochenta concubinas, e innumerables mujeres más,

9pero mi amor, mi perfecto amor, ¡es la única! Es la favorita de su madre, especial para quien la dio a luz. Las jóvenes la ven y dicen lo afortunada que es; reinas y concubinas cantan sus alabanzas.

10¿Quién es esta que es como el amanecer que brilla desde arriba, hermosa como la luna, brillante como el sol resplandeciente? ¡Te ves deslumbrante!

11Bajé al huerto de nogales para ver si los árboles estaban en hoja en el valle, para saber si las vides habían brotado o los granados estaban en flor.

12Estaba tan excitado que parecía que iba en un carro real.

13Vuelve, vuelve, mujer Sulamita; vuelve, vuelve, para que podamos mirarte!

📖 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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. Cantar de los Cantares 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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