Sol 3:4 4 Scarcely had I passed from them, When I found him whom my soul loveth. I seized him, and did not let him go Until I brought him into the house of my mother, And into the chamber of her that gave me birth. כּמעט = paululum, here standing for a sentence: it was as a little that I passed, etc. Without שׁ, it would be paululum transii; with it, paululum fuit quod transii, without any other distinction than that in the latter case the paululum is more emphatic. Since Shulamith relates something experienced earlier, אחזתּי is not fitly rendered by teneo, but by tenui; and ארפּנּוּ dna ;iune לאו, not by et non dimittam eum, but, as the neg. of וארפנו, et dimisi eum, - not merely et non dimittebam eum, but et non dimisi eum. In Gen 32:27 [26], we read the cogn. שׁלּח, which signifies, to let go (“let me go”), as הרפּה, to let loose, to let free. It is all the same whether we translate, with the subjective colouring, donec introduxerim, or, with the objective, donec introduxi; in either case the meaning is that she held him fast till she brought him, by gentle violence, into her mother’s house. With בּית there is the more definite parallel חדר lellar, which properly signifies (vid., under Sol 1:4), recessus, penetrale; with אמּי, the seldom occurring (only, besides, at Hos 2:7) הורה, part.f. Kal of הרה fo la, to conceive, be pregnant, which poetically, with the accus., may mean parturire or parere. In Jacob’s blessing, Gen 49:26, as the text lies before us, his parents are called הורי; just as in Arab. ummâni, properly “my two mothers,” may be used for “my parents;” in the Lat. also, parentes means father and mother zeugmatically taken together.