Chapter 6 Verse 1. Verse 2. Verse 3. Verse 4. Verse 5.

CHAPTER 6

Verse 1. Whither is thy beloved gone, &c.] The prophets {a} replied, when they heard the praise of the Lord, from the mouth of the congregation of Israel, and thus they said, For what offense is the shechinah of the Lord removed from thee, O thou who art fairer in thy works than all the nations? and which way did thy beloved turn himself when he removed from thy sanctuary? The congregation of Israel said, Because of the sins, transgressions, and rebellion which were found in me. The prophets said, But now return by repentance, and let us arise, both thou and we, and we will pray before him, and seek mercy with thee. Verse 2. My beloved is gone down into his garden, &c.] And the Lord of the world graciously received their prayer, and came down to the sanhedrin of the wise men at Babylon, and gave refreshment unto his people, and brought them out of their captivity by the hands of Cyrus, and Ezra, and Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and the elders of Judah; and they built the house of the sanctuary, and appointed priests over the offerings, and Levites over the charge of the holy commandment; and he sent fire from heaven and graciously received the offerings, and the sweet incense; and as a man supplies his own beloved son with dainties, so did he deliciously feed them; and as a man that gathereth roses out of the plains, so did he gather them out of Babylon.

Verse 3. I am my beloved’s, &c.] And when I served the Lord of the world, who is my beloved, my beloved caused the holy shechinah to dwell with me, and he fed me with dainties.

Verse 4. Thou are beautiful, O my love, &c.] The Lord said by his word, How fair art thou, my love, when thou art willing to perform my pleasure! beautiful is the sanctuary which thou hast built for me instead of the former sanctuary, which Solomon, king in Jerusalem, built for me, and thy dread was upon all the people in the day that thy four {b} standards marched in the wilderness.

Verse 5. Turn away thine eyes from me, &c.] Set thy doctors, the wise men of the great congregation, in a circle over against me, for these {c} made me their king in the captivity, and fixed the school, for the teaching of my law, and the rest of thy nobles, and the people of the earth justified me by the word of their mouth, as the sons of Jacob, who gathered stones and made a heap {d} upon the mount of Gilead.

Verse 6. Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep, &c.] And the priests and Levites, who eat thine offerings, and the holy tithes, and the oblation of fruits, are pure from all oppression and rapine, for they are as clean as Jacob’s flocks of sheep, when they came up from the brook {e} Jabok, for there is no oppression or rapine in them: but they are all of them like one another, and they always bear twins, neither is there any that miscarrieth or is barren among them.

Verse 7. As a piece of pomegranate, &c.] And the kingdom of the house of the Hasmonaeans {f} are all of them full of the commandments, even as a pomegranate; besides Matthias the high priest, and his sons, who are more righteous than them all, who very eagerly established the commandments and the words of the law.

Verse 8. There are threescore queens, &c.] At that time the Grecians arose and gathered sixty kings of the children of {g} Esau, clothed with coats of mail, riding upon horses, being horsemen, and eighty dukes of the children of Ishmael, riding upon elephants, besides the rest of the nations and languages, of which there is no number; and they appointed King Alexander to be the general over them, and they came to make war against Jerusalem.

Verse 9. My dove, my undefiled, is but one, &c.] And at that time the congregation of Israel, which is like to an unblemished dove, was serving her Lord with a single heart, and was united to the law, and studied in the words of the law with a perfect heart, and her righteousness was as pure as in the day when she came out of Egypt. Lo, the sons of the Hasmonaeans, and Matthias, and all the people of Israel, went forth and made war with them, and the Lord delivered them into their hands; which, when the inhabitants of the provinces saw, they blessed them, and the kingdoms of the earth, and the governors, and they praised them.

Verse 10. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, &c.] The nations said, How splendid are the works of this people as the morning; fair are their young men as the moon, and their righteousness as clear as the sun; and their dread was upon all the inhabitants of the earth, as in the time their {h} four standards marched in the wilderness! Verse 11. I went down into the garden of nuts, &c.] The Lord of the world said, concerning the second {i} temple, which was built {k} by the hands of Cyrus, I will cause my shechinah to dwell there, to behold the