Comentario sobre Cantar de los Cantares 6:8

There are sixty queens. [Referring to] Avrohom and his descendants. The sons of Keturah are sixteen. Yishmael and his sons are thirteen. Yitzchok and his sons are three. The sons of Yaakov are twelve. The sons of Eisav are sixteen. [All of the above are listed] in Divrei Hayomim¹⁴Chapter 1. , and total sixty. And if you should say that Timna¹⁵Eisav’s granddaughter. should be excluded because she is a woman, then count Avrohom in the number [of sixty].

[Here resumes the commentary on the Song of Songs:] Sixty are the queens: It is known that the emanation of both worlds took place at once. They are parallel to one another, facing one another. The World to Come has seven spatial extensions, of which Solomon in his wisdom said: “Wisdom has built her house, hewn out her seven pillars” [Prov. 9:1]. Of those the seventh is holy, the six being the six extensions, as we have explained. From these derive seventy names, standing within the twelve cosmic “arms.”¹⁹³Sefer Yesirah 5:1 uses this term (based on Deut. 33:27) for twelve directions, a refinement of the original six.
So too is this world sevenfold, divided into seventy nations which stand within those twelve directions. Below too, the central column is drawn forth as the holy one. It is Zion, as Scripture says: “From Zion, perfect in beauty, God appears” [Ps. 50:2]. This is what the sages meant when they said: “Whoever lives outside the land is like one who has no God.”¹⁹⁴Ketubut 110b. Each people derives its power from the extension to which it is parallel, from which it has been drawn forth. Thus it must be that there are seventy nations. Deduct from these ten those that belong to the spiritual central line, the Land of Israel, of which it will not be said in the future: “they did not utterly destroy them” [Josh. 13:13]. All of them as one will be wiped away and will cease to exist, both from the world and from the Throne of Glory. They are the Kenite, the Kenizite, the Kadmonite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite, the Girgashite, the Jebusite, and the Perizite. There thus remain sixty, of whom it says: “Sixty are the queens.”

And eighty concubines. [If you count] Noach and his sons until Avrohom, [i.e.,] all the generations of those who left the Ark, you will find them to be eighty. And just as the queens, who are the kings’ wives, are superior in greatness over the concubines, so were Avrohom and his offspring deemed greater and superior to all, as you will see. Hagar was the daughter of kings. Timna was the daughter of rulers and became Eisav’s concubine, and it states, “to the Valley of Shaveh, etc.”¹⁶Bereishis 14:17. [meaning,] they all unanimously resolved הֻשְׁווּ=שָׁוֵה and crowned Avrohom as king over them.

And eighty concubines: These are the chieftains of Esau, the princes of Ishmael, and the children of Keturah. They make up eighty.

And young maidens without number. All these were divided into many families.

And maidens beyond number: These are the countries and cities.
This is why the sages of Israel composed six orders [of Mishnah], parallel to the six extentions, comprising sixty tractates, parallel to the sixty queens. In the order called “Women” there are seven tractates, comprising seventy-one chapters. The Sanhedrin number seventy-one, since they are in charge of justice.¹⁹⁵The text may be assuming the special relationship, well known in later Kabbalah, between the female and din or “justice.” The rabbis said in the tractate Kiddushin:¹⁹⁶Kiddushin 76a. “You do not check [for impurities in the family tree] beyond membership in the Sanhedrin. Why? Because it is taught that just as the court is pure with regard to its judgment, so is it pure of any other defect. Said Amemar: ‘What is the basis in Scripture? “You are entirely beautiful, my love; there is no defect in you” [Cant. 4:7].’” This means to say that they are like the shekhinah, which comprises seventy-one, and they have to be as free of any defect as She is.
The sages also said, regarding the verse “I have said, ‘How shall I place you among the sons and give you a land of delight?’” [Jer. 3:19], that this is like the tale of a king who had concubines and many children born of them. He also had a single son from the queen, his wife, whom he loved very greatly. The king gave fields and vineyards to all the sons of the concubines. Then he gave his son but a single orchard, saying to him: “By your life! All my treasuries are filled only by this orchard! Because I love you so much more than your brothers I have given it to you.”¹⁹⁷Midrash Tanḥuma, Kedoshim 12. Thus the blessed Holy One created the nations of the world, as it says: “Sixty are the queens and eighty concubines, maidens without number.” These are the nations.