Canticles 7:9
Thy throat like the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink, and for his lips and his teeth to ruminate.
Open Canticles 7:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Guttur tuum sicut vinum optimum, dignum dilecto meo ad potandum, labiisque et dentibus illius ad ruminandum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ὁ λάρυγξ σου ὡς οἶνος ὁ ἀγαθός, πορευόμενος τῷ ἀδελφιδῷ μου εἰς εὐθύτητα, ἱκανούμενος χείλεσίν μου καὶ ὀδοῦσιν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Canticles 7:10
- וְחִכֵּ֕ךְ כְּיֵ֥ין הַטּ֛וֹב הוֹלֵ֥ךְ לְדוֹדִ֖י לְמֵישָׁרִ֑ים דּוֹבֵ֖ב שִׂפְתֵ֥י יְשֵׁנִֽים
Haydock's commentary
Lips. Septuagint, "sufficient for my lips and teeth." (Haydock)
The wine in that country was very thick, when kept a long time. It here denotes charity, or the gospel truths, Luke v. 37., and Acts ii. 13. Hebrew, "causing the lips of them who sleep to speak," (Calmet) as the apostles did, in transports of zeal. (Theodoret)
Yet the reading of the Septuagint, Aquila, &c., seems preferable. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter II. The goodness of the Son of God is proved from His works, namely, His benefits that He showed towards the people of Israel under the Old Covenant, and to Christians under the New. It is to one's own interest to believe in the goodness of Him Who is one's Lord and Judge. The Father's testimony to the Son. No small number of the Jewish people bear witness to the Son; the Arians therefore are plainly worse than the Jews. The words of the Bride, declaring the same goodness of Christ
32. But why do we doubt? The Church hath believed in His goodness all these ages, and hath confessed its faith in the saying: “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for thy breasts are better than wine;” and again: “And thy throat is like the goodliest wine.” Of His goodness, therefore, He nourisheth us with the breasts of the Law and Grace, soothing men’s sorrows with telling them of heavenly things; and do we, then, deny His goodness, when He is the manifestation of goodness, expressing in His Person the likeness of the Eternal Bounty, even as we showed above that it was written, that He is the spotless reflection and counterpart of that Bounty?