Song of Solomon Chapter 8
The book's closing chapter declares love as strong as death, unquenched by many waters.
Following the invitation to the fields in Song of Solomon 7, this final chapter opens with the bride's wish to be openly loved as a brother, then rises to the book's most quoted line in Song of Solomon 8:6, 'love is strong as death.'
Who doth make thee as a brother to me, Sucking the breasts of my mother? I find thee without, I kiss thee, Yea, they do not despise me,
I lead thee, I bring thee in unto my mother's house, She doth teach me, I cause thee to drink of the perfumed wine, Of the juice of my pomegranate,
His left hand `is' under my head, And his right doth embrace me.
I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, How ye stir up, And how ye wake the love till she please!
Who `is' this coming from the wilderness, Hasting herself for her beloved? Under the citron-tree I have waked thee, There did thy mother pledge thee, There she gave a pledge `that' bare thee.
Set me as a seal on thy heart, as a seal on thine arm, For strong as death is love, Sharp as Sheol is jealousy, Its burnings `are' burnings of fire, a flame of Jah!
Many waters are not able to quench the love, And floods do not wash it away. If one give all the wealth of his house for love, Treading down -- they tread upon it.
We have a little sister, and breasts she hath not, What do we do for our sister, In the day that it is told of her?
If she is a wall, we build by her a palace of silver. And if she is a door, We fashion by her board-work of cedar.
I `am' a wall, and my breasts as towers, Then I have been in his eyes as one finding peace.
Solomon hath a vineyard in Baal-Hamon, He hath given the vineyard to keepers, Each bringeth for its fruit a thousand silverlings;
My vineyard -- my own -- is before me, The thousand `is' for thee, O Solomon. And the two hundred for those keeping its fruit. O dweller in gardens!
The companions are attending to thy voice, Cause me to hear. Flee, my beloved, and be like to a roe,
Or to a young one of the harts on mountains of spices!