The Song of Songs 7:4
ContextNET © | Your neck is like a tower made of ivory. 1 Your eyes are the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath-Rabbim. 2 Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon overlooking Damascus. |
NIV © | Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking towards Damascus. |
NASB © | "Your neck is like a tower of ivory, Your eyes like the pools in Heshbon By the gate of Bath-rabbim; Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, Which faces toward Damascus. |
NLT © | Your neck is as stately as an ivory tower. Your eyes are like the sparkling pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath–rabbim. Your nose is as fine as the tower of Lebanon overlooking Damascus. |
MSG © | Your neck is carved ivory, curved and slender. Your eyes are wells of light, deep with mystery. Quintessentially feminine! Your profile turns all heads, commanding attention. |
BBE © | Your neck is as a tower of ivory; your eyes like the waters in Heshbon, by the doorway of Bath-rabbim; your nose is as the tower on Lebanon looking over Damascus: |
NRSV © | Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus. |
NKJV © | Your neck is like an ivory tower, Your eyes like the pools in Heshbon By the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon Which looks toward Damascus. |
KJV | |
NASB © | |
HEBREW | |
LXXM | |
NET © [draft] ITL | |
NET © | Your neck is like a tower made of ivory. 1 Your eyes are the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath-Rabbim. 2 Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon overlooking Damascus. |
NET © Notes |
1 tn Alternately, “the ivory tower.” The noun הַשֵּׁן (hashshen, “ivory”) is a genitive of composition, that is, a tower made out of ivory. Solomon had previously compared her neck to a tower (Song 4:4). In both cases the most obvious point of comparison has to do with size and shape, that is, her neck was long and symmetrical. Archaeology has never found a tower overlaid with ivory in the ancient Near East and it is doubtful that there ever was such a tower. The point of comparison might simply be that the shape of her neck looks like a tower, while the color and smoothness of her neck was like ivory. Solomon is mixing metaphors: her neck was long and symmetrical like a tower; but also elegant, smooth, and beautiful as ivory. The beauty, elegance, and smoothness of a woman’s neck is commonly compared to ivory in ancient love literature. For example, in a piece of Greek love literature, Anacron compared the beauty of the neck of his beloved Bathyllus to ivory (Ode xxxix 28-29). 2 sn It is impossible at the present time to determine the exact significance of the comparison of her eyes to the “gate of Bath-Rabbim” because this site has not yet been identified by archaeologists. |