1The Song of songs, which is Solomon’s.
Beloved
2Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;
for your love is better than wine.
3Your oils have a pleasing fragrance.
Your name is oil poured out,
therefore the virgins love you.
4Take me away with you.
Let’s hurry.
The king has brought me into his rooms.
Friends
We will be glad and rejoice in you.
We will praise your love more than wine!
Beloved
They are right to love you.
5I am dark, but lovely,
you daughters of Jerusalem,
like Kedar’s tents,
like Solomon’s curtains.
6Don’t stare at me because I am dark,
because the sun has scorched me.
My mother’s sons were angry with me.
They made me keeper of the vineyards.
I haven’t kept my own vineyard.
7Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
where you graze your flock,
where you rest them at noon;
for why should I be as one who is veiled
beside the flocks of your companions?
Lover
8If you don’t know, most beautiful among women,
follow the tracks of the sheep.
Graze your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.
9I have compared you, my love,
to a steed in Pharaoh’s chariots.
10Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings,
your neck with strings of jewels.
Friends
11We will make you earrings of gold,
with studs of silver.
Beloved
12While the king sat at his table,
my perfume spread its fragrance.
13My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh,
that lies between my breasts.
14My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
from the vineyards of En Gedi.
Lover
15Behold, you are beautiful, my love.
Behold, you are beautiful.
Your eyes are like doves.
Beloved
16Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, yes, pleasant;
and our couch is verdant.
Lover
17The beams of our house are cedars.
Our rafters are firs.
Ein Gedi is an oasis in the Judean Desert next to the Dead Sea. Here most famously David fled from Saul and cut off his tassels even though David’s men egged him on to kill Saul (1 Sam 24). Saul realized David had the opportunity to kill him. But even David’s cutting of the tassels caused David’s “heart to smote” (1 Sam 24:5) because tassels symbolized the person who wore them, in this case Saul and his kingdom. This very tearing was foreshadowed by Samuel ripping Saul’s tassels as a symbol of Saul’s kingdom being ripped from him (1 Sam 15:27-28).
Ein Gedi is equated with Hatztzon Tamar in 2 Chronicles 20:2 which then places Ein Gedi as the place of the First Battle of the Kings in Genesis 14. Ein Gedi where Jehosophat watched God rout the Amonites and the Moabites (2 Chr 20) and where Ezekiel envisioned the fresh water from the Temple transforming the Dead Sea to be teaming with all kinds of fish (Ezek 47). Today one can see two spring-fed streams with flowing water year-round: Nahal David (Wadi Sadir) and Nahal Arugot (Wadi Arija). Two other springs, the Shulamit and Ein Gedi springs, also flow in the nature reserve.
Tel Goren is the ancient mound of En Gedi that was excavated in the 1960s and found to be the center of inhabitation of the oasis from the seventh century BCE in the times of Kings Hezekiah and Manasseh through the Byzantine period. Subsequently, a synagogue from the third through the sixth century CE was discovered northeast of Tel Goren. Excavations in the synagogue revealed a possible “Moses’ seat” (Matthew 23:1-3; see Chorazim) and a Hebrew and Aramaic inscription on a mosaic floor decrying anyone who tells the “secret,” very likely the Ein Gedi balsam production since this world-famous balsam was traded throughout the Mediterranean basin.