Where has your beloved gone. The nations taunt and provoke Yisroel, “Where has your Beloved gone?” Why has He left you abandoned like a widow?¹

footnotes: ¹ Alternatively, where has He gone? (Gra)

Where has your beloved turned. When He returned and rested His Spirit upon Coresh, and he granted permission to build the Beis Hamikdosh, and they began to build, they [the nations] came and said to them, “Where has your Beloved turned?”² If He is returning to you, we will seek Him with you, as the matter is stated, “Now the adversaries of Yehudah and Binyamin heard that the people of the exile were building a Temple, etc. And they approached Zerubavel, etc., ‘Let us build with you, for, like you, we seek your God, etc.”³ But their intention was sinister, [and] in order to stop them from the work. And they replied—

footnotes: ² Alternatively, what does He occupy Himself with now? (Gra) ³ Ezra 4:1-2.

My beloved has gone down to his garden. He commanded us to build His Temple, and He will be there with us.⁴

footnotes: ⁴ Alternatively, He has gone to the “Garden” of Eden. (Gra)

To the beds of spices. The place where the incense is burned.

To graze in the gardens. And further, He has gone to graze His sheep in the gardens where they were scattered, [i.e.,] those who did not come up from the exile, He rests His Divine Presence upon them in the synagogues and in the study halls.⁵

footnotes: ⁵ He occupies Himself by delighting in the presence of the righteous. (Gra)

And to gather roses. He listens and hearkens to those who speak His Torah, to collect their merits and to inscribe them in a memorial book before Him, as the matter is stated, “Then the men who fear Adonoy spoke, etc.”⁶ And concerning your request to seek Him with us, and to build with us, “I am my Beloved’s,” but you are not His, and you shall not build with us, as the matter is stated, “It is not for you and for us to build a House for our God ,”⁷ and it states [further], “and you have no portion or right or memorial in Yerusholayim.”⁸

footnotes: ⁶ Malachi 3:16. ⁷ Ezra 4:3. ⁸ Nechemyah 2:20.

Who grazes among the roses. Who grazes his sheep in a calm and goodly pasture.

You are beautiful, my beloved, as Tirtzah. And the Holy One, Blessed Is He, praises her for this [reply, and says], “You are beautiful, My beloved,” when you are desirable⁹ to Me. So it is expounded in Sifrei.

footnotes: ⁹ I.e., where you perform deeds that please me, interpreting כתרצה as כרצויה. Alternatively, תרצה is a city in Eretz Yisroel that was captured by Yehoshua [see Yehoshua 12:24]. It is renowned for its beauty.

Comely. Are you now as at first in Yerusholayim.¹⁰

footnotes: ¹⁰ Which is described as “perfect in beauty’ in Tehillim 50:2.

Awesome as the hosts [of angels]. Legions of angels. I will cast your awe upon them so that they should not wage war and stop you from the work, as it is stated in Ezra.¹¹

footnotes: ¹¹ 5:5.

Turn your eyes away from me. Like a young man whose betrothed is dear and pleasing to him, and her eyes are comely, and he says to her, “Turn away your eyes from me, for when I see you, my heart becomes haughty and proud, and my spirit becomes arrogant, and I cannot resist.”

Made me haughty. They made my heart haughty, as in, “And their pride וְרָהְבָּם is toil and pain,”¹² [and as in,] “They are haughty רַהַב but idle,”¹³ asoajier in O.F. The allegorical meaning is as follows: The Holy One, Blessed Is He, said, “In this Beis Hamikdosh, it is impossible to restore to you the Ark, the Ark cover, and the cherubim, which excessively endeared you to Me in the first Beis Hamikdosh, to show you great affection, until you betrayed Me.”

footnotes: ¹² Tehillim 90:10. ¹³ Yeshayahu 30:7.

Your hair is like a flock of goats. The young, tender, and insignificant ones among you, are praiseworthy.

Your teeth. The officers and the mighty that are among you are entirely good.

Like a counted flock. The ewe can entirely be utilized for holy purposes: its wool is for blue thread, its flesh for sacrifice, its horns for shofars, its thighs for flutes, its intestines for harp [strings], its hide for a drum. But the wicked [i.e., nations] were likened to dogs, for they are entirely unuseable for holy purposes.

There are sixty queens. [Referring to] Avrohom and his descendants. The sons of Keturah are sixteen. Yishmael and his sons are thirteen. Yitzchok and his sons are three. The sons of Yaakov are twelve. The sons of Eisav are sixteen. [All of the above are listed] in Divrei Hayomim¹⁴, and total sixty. And if you should say that Timna¹⁵ should be excluded because she is a woman, then count Avrohom in the number [of sixty].

footnotes: ¹⁴ Chapter 1. ¹⁵ Eisav’s granddaughter.

And eighty concubines. [If you count] Noach and his sons until Avrohom, [i.e.,] all the generations of those who left the Ark, you will find them to be eighty. And just as the queens, who are the kings’ wives, are superior in greatness over the concubines, so were Avrohom and his offspring deemed greater and superior to all, as you will see. Hagar was the daughter of kings. Timna was the daughter of rulers and became Eisav’s concubine, and it states, “to the Valley of Shaveh, etc.”¹⁶ [meaning,] they all unanimously resolved הֻשְׁווּ=שָׁוֵה and crowned Avrohom as king over them.

footnotes: ¹⁶ Bereishis 14:17.

And young maidens without number. All these were divided into many families.

But she is unique my dove. And of all of them,¹⁷ she¹⁸ is My chosen one, like a perfect dove, who is wholehearted with her mate.

footnotes: ¹⁷ All the nations mentioned in the previous verse. ¹⁸ I.e., Yisroel.

She is unique to her mother. To her assembly.¹⁹ Many arguments take place in the study halls, all of them stem from the desire to understand Torah in its fundamentals and according to its true meaning.

footnotes: ¹⁹ I.e., allegorically the word לאמה is understood to mean לאומה [=nation].

She is pure to her who begot her. Yaakov saw that his bed [i.e., progeny] was perfect without any disqualification, and he thanked and praised the Omnipresent, as it is stated, “And Yisroel bowed down at the head of the of the bed.”²⁰

footnotes: ²⁰ Bereishis 47:31. He bowed in gratitude that all his children were righteous.

Daughters saw her. [Other nations saw] Yisroel in her greatness.

And acclaimed her. And what is their praise?

Who is this that gazes down. Upon us, [looking] from a high place to a low place is called “הַשְׁקָפָה.” So is the Beis Hamikdosh higher than all lands.²¹

footnotes: ²¹ See Maseches Kiddushin 69a.

Like the [breaking] dawn. Which gradually illuminates little by little; so were the [Bnei] Yisroel during the second Beis Hamikdosh. In the beginning, Zerubavel was the governor of Yehudah, but not a king, and they were subjugated to Persia and to Greece, but afterwards, the house of Chashmonai defeated them and they became kings.

Awesome as the hosts [of angels]. Awesome with her mighty men like the bannered legions of kings. All this the Holy One, Blessed Is He, praises the congregation of Yisroel, [beginning with] “You are beautiful, my beloved, as Tirtzah,”²² and the entire section until here.

footnotes: ²² Above, verse 4.

I went down to the garden of nuts. This too is the words of the Divine Presence, “Behold, I have come to this second Beis Hamikdosh, to you.”

To see the moist plants of the valley. What moisture, [i.e.,] good deeds I would see in you.

Whether the vine has blossomed. Whether you would blossom before Me [into] Torah scholars, scribes, and teachers.

If the pomegranates had sprouted. Those who fulfill the commandments are full of merits. Why are [Bnei] Yisroel compared to a nut? Just as this nut, you see it entirely of wood [shell], and what is inside is not discernible, and you crack it and find it full of compartments of edible food, so are the [Bnei] Yisroel modest and humble in their deeds, and the students among them are not discernible, and they do not boast by announcing their own praise. But if you examine him, you find him full of wisdom. There are many additional Midrashic interpretations of this matter. Just as if this nut falls into mud, its inside does not become sullied, so are the [Bnei] Yisroel exiled among the nations and they suffer many blows, but their deeds do not become sullied.

I did not know. The congregation of Yisroel laments, “I did not know how to be aware of sin, that I should retain my glory and my greatness, and I erred over groundless hatred and controversy, which intensified during the reign of the Chashmonai kings, Horkenus and Aristoblus,²³ until one of them brought in the Roman Empire and received the kingship from its hand and became its vassal. Since then, “my soul set me” to be “like chariots,” to let the nobility of other nations ride upon me.

footnotes: ²³ They were brothers who battled one another for the throne.

A noble people. עַמִּי נָדִיב means] the same as עַם נָדִיב[=a noble people]. The yud is superfluous like the yud of, “the One Who took up His abode שֹׁכֵן=שֹׁכְנִי in the thornbush,”²⁴ [and as in,] “stolen גְּנֻבַת=גְּנֻבְתִי by day,”²⁵ [and as in,] “populous רַבַּת=רַבָּתִי.”²⁶

footnotes: ²⁴ Devarim 33:16. ²⁵ Bereishis 31:39. ²⁶ Eichah 1:1.

My soul set me. I myself appointed them over me, as the matter is stated, “and you accustomed them to be officers in charge over you.”²⁷

footnotes: ²⁷ Yeirmiyahu 13:21.