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Song of Songs 4

The poem celebrates a bride’s beauty and the lovers’ mutual desire through praise, fragrance, and the image of a garden.

A man praises the woman he loves, describing her eyes, hair, and body through images drawn from flocks, fruit, and fortified towers. He calls her his bride and speaks of how her love has captured his heart. His praise moves toward the image of an enclosed garden rich with spices and flowing water. In the final verse, the woman calls for the winds to spread its fragrance and welcomes her beloved into the garden. The precise occasion remains unstated.

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1Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, that descend from Mount Gilead.
2Your teeth are like a newly shorn flock, which have come up from the washing, where every one of them has twins. None is bereaved among them.
3Your lips are like scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.
5Your two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, which feed among the lilies.
6Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, to the hill of frankincense.
7You are all beautiful, my love. There is no spot in you.
8Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, with me from Lebanon. Look from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
9You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.
10How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine, the fragrance of your perfumes than all kinds of spices!
11Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
12My sister, my bride, is a locked up garden; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.
13Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits, henna with spikenard plants,
14spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree; myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices,
15a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, flowing streams from Lebanon.
16Awake, north wind, and come, you south! Blow on my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and taste his precious fruits.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Song of Songs 4:1The opening declaration establishes the man’s delight in his beloved and begins his extended praise through images from nature.
Song of Songs 4:7This sweeping praise gathers the descriptions of her features into a declaration of delight in her whole person.
Song of Songs 4:16The woman’s closing response takes up the garden imagery and expresses her own desire for her beloved’s presence.
Where this chapter reaches

Proverbs shares the use of fountains and water to describe marital intimacy, while Ephesians shares the imagery of a bride without blemish in its account of Christ and the church. John also uses living water imagery, though there it concerns the life Jesus gives.

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After reading the whole chapter

Which comparison takes the most effort to understand, and what might it convey within this love poem?

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How does the woman’s response in verse 16 shape your reading of the man’s praise?

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Questions people ask about Song of Songs 4

Why does Song of Songs 4 compare hair to goats and teeth to sheep?

The comparisons draw on sights familiar in a pastoral landscape. A descending flock suggests the movement and sweep of hair; washed sheep suggest clean, white teeth. The paired animals suggest a complete, even set. These are poetic impressions, and the text does not explain every detail of the comparisons.

Why does the man call his bride his sister in Song of Songs 4?

The phrase joins a term of closeness with the word bride. In ancient love poetry, sibling language could express affection between lovers. The chapter presents the woman as his beloved and bride; it gives no indication that they share parents. The wording conveys cherished closeness within the love poem.

What does the locked garden mean in Song of Songs 4?

The garden is a poetic image for the bride and the intimacy of their love. Its enclosure suggests privacy and exclusiveness, while its fruit, spices, and water convey delight and abundance. Verse 16 develops the image through the woman’s welcome to her beloved. The poem leaves individual details open to interpretation.

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What the Bible says about marriage →

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).