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Song of Songs 2:15 is a puzzle to most commentators. \u00a0Cheryl Exum does a good job with it. \u00a0Like many commentators, she notes evidence that foxes were symbolic of sexual potency and also ancient fables and proverbs that indicate foxes were threats to vineyards. \u00a0Verse 15 is the woman\u2019s reply to the lover\u2019s request in v. 14 to hear the woman\u2019s voice. \u00a0She replies in the plural, taking the place of all women, complaining about how men are \u201cfoxes\u201d who want to taste the grapes of the vineyards without, and then dashing away. \u00a0A common enough complaint, here offered in a somewhat playful fashion. <\/p>\n
Exum goes on: \u201cOnce the significance of catching the foxes, generally overlooked by critics, is taken into account, it becomes easier to imagine how the vineyards and foxes also fit the situation . . . . Verse 15 is only the first part of the woman\u2019s reply to her lover, and it means, in effect: young men can roam freely in search of romance, like foxes romping through the vineyards. \u00a0They want our favors, and we want theirs, but we are not so free as they are to dally. \u00a0The important thing for us is not to enjoy the random fox but to catch a fox for our very own (each of us, her own fox). \u00a0These free and easy young men need to be caught, seized hold of and brought home (here the imperative \u2018catch\u2019 or \u2018seize\u2019 is indefinite; who does the catching is not specified). \u00a0This is the goal that the woman achieves in 3:4, when she siezes her lover . . . and refuses to let him go until she has brought him to her mother\u2019s house.\u201d <\/p>\n
On this reading, 2:15 moves straight into 2:16, the declaration of mutual possession, a declaration only possible once the woman has caught and secured her fox and offered her own vineyard to him. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Song of Songs 2:15 is a puzzle to most commentators. \u00a0Cheryl Exum does a good job with it. \u00a0Like many commentators, she notes evidence that foxes were symbolic of sexual potency and also ancient fables and proverbs that indicate foxes were threats to vineyards. \u00a0Verse 15 is the woman\u2019s reply to the lover\u2019s request in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-ot-song-of-songs"],"yoast_head":"\n