Tafsiran Kidung Agung 1:5: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi & Ezra ben Solomon

“I am dark, but comely” [1:5]. Israel said: when I was in Egypt I was very dark because I smeared myself from working with mud and bricks. I have become very white with silver and gold at the sea. When I am dark a whole week from work and business, I am again beautiful on the Sabbath.⁷Yalkut Shimoni, Song of Songs, Remez, 982.

“Like the tents of Kedar” [1:5]. He compared the sages to the tents of the Tatars. They are covered on the outside with dirty rags, but on the inside the same tent shines with precious stones. The sages are the same. Their faces are darkened from much study of Torah, but their bodies are full of Torah, Mishnayot, and Midrashim that shine quite beautifully.⁸Yalkut Shimoni, Song of Songs, Remez, 982.

I am black but comely, etc. You, my friends, let me not be light in your eyes. Even if my husband has left me because of my blackness, for I am black because of the tanning of the sun, but I am comely with the shape of beautiful limbs. Though I am black like the tents of Keidar, which are blackened because of the rains, for they are always spread out in the wilderness, I am easily cleansed to become like the curtains of Shlomo. The allegory is: The congregation of Yisroel says to the nations, “I am black in my deeds [i.e., sins], but I am comely by virtue of the deeds of my ancestors, and even some of my deeds are comely. If I bear the iniquity of the [golden] calf,²⁰According to Targum the faces of the Bnei Yisroel actually turned black like the skin of the Cushites, when they sinned with the golden calf. After they repented the blackness went away. I can offset it with the merit of the acceptance of the Torah.” [Scripture] calls the nations, “the daughters בְּנוֹת of Yerusholayim” because it is destined to become the metropolis for them all, as Yechezkeil prophesied, “I will give them to you as surrounding villages לְבָנוֹת,”²¹Yechezkeil 16:61. and similarly, “Ekron, and its suburbs וּבְנֹתֶיהָ.”²²Yehoshua 15:45.