Sol 7:10 10 I am my beloved’s And to me goeth forth his desire.
After the words “I am my beloved's,” we miss the “and my beloved is mine” of Sol 6:3, cf. Sol 2:16, which perhaps had dropped out. The second line here refers back to Gen 3:16, for here, as there, תּשׁוּקה, from שׁוּק, to impel, move, is the impulse of love as a natural power. When a wife is the object of such passion, it is possible that, on the one side, she feels herself very fortunate therein; and, on the other side, if the love, in its high commendations, becomes excessive, oppressed, and when she perceive that in her love-relation she is the observed of many eyes, troubled. It is these mingled feelings which move Shulamith when she continues the praise so richly lavished on her in words which denote what she might be to the king, but immediately breaks off in order that, as the following verse now shows, she might use this superabundance of his love for the purpose of setting forth her request, and thus of leading into another path; her simple, child-like disposition longs for the quietness and plainness of rural life, away from the bustle and display of city and court life.