Canticles 7:6
How beautiful art thou, and how comely, my dearest, in delights!
Open Canticles 7:6 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Sponsus Quam pulchra es, et quam decora, carissima, in deliciis !
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τί ὡραιώθης, καὶ τί ἡδύνθης, ἀγάπη, ἐν τρυφαῖς σου;
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Canticles 7:7
- מַה יָּפִית֙ וּמַה נָּעַ֔מְתְּ אַהֲבָ֖ה בַּתַּֽעֲנוּגִֽים
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine City of God, Of David’s Reign and Merit; And of His Son Solomon, and that Prophecy Relating to Christ Which is Found Either in Those Books Which are Joined to Those Written by Him, or in Those Which are Indubitably His
But as regards those three books which it is evident are Solomon’s and held canonical by the Jews, to show what of this kind may be found in them pertaining to Christ and the Church demands a laborious discussion, which, if now entered on, would lengthen this work unduly. Yet what we read in the Proverbs of impious men saying, “Let us unrighteously hide in the earth the righteous man; yea, let us swallow him up alive as hell, and let us take away his memory from the earth: let us seize his precious possession,” is not so obscure that it may not be understood, without laborious exposition, of Christ and His possession the Church. …
St Ambrose On the Mysteries, Chapter VII. The washing away of sins is indicated by the white robes of the catechumens, whence the Church speaks of herself as black and comely. Angels marvel at her brightness as at that of the flesh of the Lord. Moreover, Christ Himself commended His beauty to His Spouse under many figures. The mutual affection of the one for the other is described
39. The Church is beautiful in them. So that God the Word says to her: “Thou art all fair, My love, and there is no blemish in thee,” for guilt has been washed away. “Come hither from Lebanon, My spouse, come hither from Lebanon, from the beginning of faith wilt thou pass through and pass on,” because, renouncing the world, she passed through things temporal and passed on to Christ. And again, God the Word says to her: “How beautiful and sweet art thou made, O love, in thy delights! Thy stature is become like that of a palm-tree, and thy breasts like bunches of grapes.”
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).