Tafsiran Kidung Agung 5:7: Rashi & Ezra ben Solomon

I sought him, etc. The watchmen found me, those who go about the city. And apprehend thieves who prowl at night.

Consequently, upon the departure of the shekhinah, many and horrific troubles befell me, caused by the watchmen patrolling the town. These are the seventy angels who surround God’s Throne of Glory; through them harsh decrees enter the world. As it states in the Chapters of R. Eliezer [chap. 24] concerning: “‘Let us, then, go down and confound their speech …’ [Gen. 11:7]. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to the angels surrounding His Throne of Glory: ‘let us go and confound their speech.’” They are similarly called shomrei homot: “the guards of the walls.” This passage is a parable for the evil decrees and persecutions which befell the Jewish people during the period of the Second Temple by the hands of the Greeks.

They struck me they wounded me. They inflicted a wound upon me.¹⁹I.e., by striking me they inflicted a wound. Alternatively, the double expression [struck, wounded] represents the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdosh and the second Beis Hamikdosh. Every “פֶּצַע” denotes a wound [inflicted] by a weapon,²⁰Rashi in Shemos 25:21 defines “פצע” as “a wound that draws blood.” navredure in O.F.

My ornament. My jewelry that was hammered and beaten out, upon me. The entire episode is an expression [using the terms] of the wife of one’s youth who grieves for the husband of her youth and searches for him. The following is the allegorical meaning:

My beloved sent forth his hand from the portal. When I said, “I have washed my feet,”²¹Above Verse 3. and I will not open for You, and I will not repent of the idolatry that I have chosen.

Sent forth his hand. And He demonstrated His vengeance in the days of Achaz, and He brought upon him the king of Aram’s army. [It states,] “and they smote him and captured from him a great captivity, etc. And Pekach the son of Remalyah slew in Yehudah one hundred and twenty thousand in one day.”²²II Divrei Hayomim 28:5-6.