1 Where has your beloved gone (the court ladies speaking again), O you fairest among women? where has your beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with you. (Your actions leads others to Him.)
2 My beloved (the Shulamite speaks again) is gone down into his garden He has come back to her, to the beds of spices, to feed [his flock] in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
3 I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he that feeds [his flock] as a shepherd among the lilies.
N2 Q1 6:4-10. Solomon comes forward with flatteries. What his court-ladies said was true.
R1 6:11,12. The Shulamite explains that her meeting with him was "unwittingly". She withdraws.
Q2 6:13-. Solomon: "return, return".
R2 6:-13-. The Shulamite: "What is there to look at in me?"
Q3 6:-13-7:9. Solomon renews his flatteries.
R3 7:10-8:4. The Shulamite rejects him: "I belong to my beloved; not to you". Calls on her beloved
to fetch her away, and again adjures the court ladies not to excite her feelings.
4 You art beautiful (Solomon breaks in as soon as the Shulamite called for her beloved [shepherd], as he did in 1:9), O my friend, as Tirzah (because the royal residence of the kings of Israel after the division of the kingdom, until Omri built Samaria [1 Kings 14:17,&c.]. Cp. 16:24. Tizrah means delightful. Hence the flattering comparison), comely as Jerusalem, majestic (or awe-inspiring) as bannered hosts. (A reference to the Hosts of Israel in their journeys in Num. 2. They've got it together, not a mob.)
5 Turn away your eyes from me, for they have taken me by storm: your hair is like a flock of goats springing down from Gilead. (Alive and vivacious.)
6 Your teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof every one bears twins, and there is not one barren among them. (None missing. This is how He sees you spiritually.)
7 As a part of a pomegranate are your temples behind your veil.
8 There are (i.e. I have) sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and damsels without number. (He isn't looking for numbers, protect your credibility.)
9 But he is my dove, my undefiled is my only one (in contrast with the numbers of v.6. Flattery enough to turn the heart of almost any woman); she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yes, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her saying.
10 "Who is she that looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and beautiful as an army with banners?" (Our banner is Christ)
11 I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley (the Shulamite explains that she went down into the nut-garden quite innocently, and with no design on her part), and to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates budded. (To see if it was harvest time.)
12 I know not [how it was], I placed myself (or, was brought) like the chariots of my People, the noble. (The Shulamite plainly seems to be saying that she came unwittingly on the royal chariots and the retinue of noble with Solomon when he first saw her.)
13 Return, return (This is the entreaty of Solomon, as she turned to go away, the moment her necessary explanation had been made), O Shulamite (this is the location intended here. Ashihag came from Shunen [1 Kings 1:4]; and is here used as being synonymous with "fairest among women" [1:8; 5:9; 6:1]); return, return, that we may look upon you
What will you gaze on in the Shulamite? (This is her answer to Solomon's request as she was departing)
As it were the company of two armies. (Double rest, inheritance of the elect. 2 armies, Satan's and God's)