[287] McClintock and Strong’s Encyclop. of Biblical Literature says:  “It must be borne in mind that Jacob himself had now reached the mature age of seventy-seven years, as appears from a comparison of Joseph’s age... with Jacob’s.”  That Rachel was not much over fifteen may be assumed because among Oriental nomadic races shepherd girls are very seldom unmarried after that age, or even an earlier age, for obvious reasons.

[288] Gen. 19:  1-9; 19:  30-38; 34:  1-31; 38:  8-25; 39:  6-20; Judges 19:  22-30; II.  Sam. 3:  6-9; 11:  2-27; 13:  1-22; 16:  22; etc.

[289] For whom the Hebrew poet has a special word (dodi) different from that used when Solomon is referred to.

[290] See Renan, Preface, p. iv.  It is of all Biblical books, the one “pour lequel les scribes qui ont decide du sort des ecrits hebreux ont le plus elargi leurs regles d’admission.”

[291] McClintock and Strong.

[292] In the seventh chapter there are lines where, as Renan points out (50), the speaker, in describing the girl, “vante ses charmes les plus intimes,” and where the translator was “oblige a des attenuations.”

[293] Renan says justly that it is the most obscure of all Hebrew poems.  According to the old Hebrew exegesis, every passage in the Bible has seventy different meanings, all of them equally true; but of this Song a great many more than seventy interpretations have been given:  the titles of treatises on the Canticles fill four columns of fine print in McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopaedia.  Griffis declares that it is, “probably, the most perfect poem in any language,” but in my opinion it is far inferior to other books in the Bible.  The adjective perfect is not applicable to a poem so obscure that more than half its meaning has to be read between the lines, while its plan, if plan it has, is so mixed up and hindmost foremost that I sometimes feel tempted to accept the view of Herder and others that the Song of Songs is not one drama, but a collection of unconnected poems.

[294] Mr. Griffis’ lucid, ingenious, and admirably written monograph entitled, The Lily among Thorns, is unfortunately marred in many parts by the author’s attitude, which is not that of a critic or a judge, but of a lawyer who has a case to prove, that black and gray are really snow white.  His sense of humor ought to have prevented him from picturing an Eastern shepherd complimenting a girl of his class on her “instinctive refinement”.  He carries this idealizing process so far that he arbitrarily divides the line “I am black but comely,” attributing the first three words to the Shulamite, the other two to a chorus of her rivals in Solomon’s harem!  The latter supposition is inconceivable; and why should not the Shulamite call herself comely?  I once looked admiringly at a Gypsy girl in Spain, who promptly opened her lips, and said, with an arch smile, “soy muy bonita”—­“I am very pretty!”—­which seemed the natural, naive attitude of an Oriental girl.  To argue away such a trifling spot on maiden modesty as the Shulamite’s calling herself comely, while seeing no breach of delicacy in her inviting her lover to come into the garden and eat his precious fruits, though admitting (214) that “the maiden yields thus her heart and her all to her lover,” is surely straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.