Translation
Your two breasts
Go to footnote numberare like two fawns,
Go to footnote numberlike twin fawns of a gazelle
Go to footnote numberthat graze
Go to footnote numberamong the lilies.
Go to footnote numberParaphrase
Your ability to nurture never lacks energy and newness,
it is full of vigor and grace,
a vigor that gains vitality by recognizing beauty in things around you.
Footnotes
1
Breasts represent nourishment. Often a wife will push herself past the limits of her strength and energy in order to provide the atmosphere and service her family needs. This may be a young mother staying up all night with a sick baby, or a wife well along in years making one more trip down those stairs to put in another load of laundry. Wives that serve sacrificially and never stop nurturing are to be praised. God can and does give new energy.
2
Fawns are symbols of new energy.
3
A gazelle called to mind vigor and grace.
4
Grazing means to “satisfy one’s basic needs.”
5
Lilies were splashes of colorful beauty in the midst of an otherwise ordinary landscape. Solomon’s wife is not the only beautiful thing in the picture, she also benefits by seeing beauty in others, beauty of character, of heart, and the beauty of what God has created. Thus she is both a source of beauty, and is energized by beauty. I am constantly amazed at how balanced the Song is.