Tafsiran Kidung Agung 4:9: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi & Ezra ben Solomon

“You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride” [4:9]. You take me to heart, my sister, my bride. “You have captured my heart with a glance of one of your eyes” [4:9]. “With a glance of one of your eyes.” These are the good attributes that you have. “With one coil of your necklace” [4:9]. This is Abraham Our Patriarch who was called a giant [anaq], as the verse says, “a great man among the giants” [Joshua, 14:5]. The Holy One said this to Israel as a parable of a groom speaking to his bride. However, one can ask about this parable, why does the groom boast about the bride that she has one eye? The verse says, “You have captured me, my sister, with one of your eyes” [4:9]. It would be better if she had both eyes. The explanation is that this is a parable. A king wanted to take a queen for himself from a distant land and wanted to see for himself that she had no physical defects. However, when the distance was too great and he could not leave his land. What did the king do? He sends for his painter and orders him to paint an accurate likeness, with all of her limbs. The painter paints her with great diligence and brings the image to the king with great joy. The painter thinks that he will be well rewarded for his diligent work. When the king sees the painting, he throws it away and is very angry with the painter. He quickly sends for another painter and orders him to correctly paint the figure. The painter thinks about what the king meant and understands the true meaning and says [to himself]. If I painted the figure full face with both eyes, like two people facing each other, then one could see that the face has no defects. However, one could not see the back and she might easily have a hunchback. Therefore, the painter was smart and painted the right side of the face with one eye and afterwards the left side, also with the left eye, so that one could also see the back. He brought it this way to the king. The king saw the painting and loved it very much and was very happy with the wisdom of the painter and gave him great presents. This is the meaning of the verse. It is a parable about the groom who boasted about the bride, you have captured my heart with one of your eyes, and loved her so much afterwards that he knew that she had no defects. This is what he means when he says further; you have captured my heart with a coil of your necklace. The Holy One says the same thing to Israel, that she will have no defects in her Torah, as the verse says, “Your brow [gleams] like a pomegranate” [6:7]. This means that the most insignificant among you is fuller with mitzvot and good deeds than a pomegranate is full of seeds.²⁴B. Erubin, 19a.

You captured my heart. You have drawn My heart to you.

You have ravished my heart — my bride: Your extraordinary attractiveness has stopped my heart. This [ravishing of the heart] is the thing and its opposite, similar to “they shall ash the altar” [Num. 4:13].⁹⁹Ravishing excites and stops the heart at once. “Ashing” the altar means removing the ashes. For desire and inclination and their union are drawn to her lofty beauty.

With but one of your eyes. Of the many good characteristics that you possess, if you had only one, I would love you dearly, and all the more so with all of them. And similarly, “with one necklace of your necklaces,” with but one of the chains of your necklaces. These are the adornments of commandments through which the [Bnei] Yisroel are distinguished. Another explanation of “בְּאַחַד עֲנָק,” with one of your forefathers, [the one] referred to as, “was one,”⁵⁸Yechezkeil 33:24. the one singled out, and this is Avrohom, who is called עֲנָק [=a giant], “the greatest man among the giants בַּעֲנָקִים.”⁵⁹Yehoshua 14:15.