1 Raja-raja 4:33

4:33 He produced manuals on botany, describing every kind of plant, ¹  from the cedars of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows on walls. He also produced manuals on biology, describing ²  animals, birds, insects, and fish.

Kidung Agung 7:4

7:4 Your neck is like a tower made of ivory. ³ 

Your eyes are the pools in Heshbon

by the gate of Bath-Rabbim. ⁴ 

Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon

overlooking Damascus.

[4:33]  ¹ tn Heb “he spoke about plants.”

[4:33]  ² tn Heb “he spoke about.”

[7:4]  ³ tn Alternately, “the ivory tower.” The noun הַשֵּׁן (hashshen, “ivory”) is a genitive of composition, that is, a tower made out of ivory. Solomon had previously compared her neck to a tower (Song 4:4). In both cases the most obvious point of comparison has to do with size and shape, that is, her neck was long and symmetrical. Archaeology has never found a tower overlaid with ivory in the ancient Near East and it is doubtful that there ever was such a tower. The point of comparison might simply be that the shape of her neck looks like a tower, while the color and smoothness of her neck was like ivory. Solomon is mixing metaphors: her neck was long and symmetrical like a tower; but also elegant, smooth, and beautiful as ivory. The beauty, elegance, and smoothness of a woman’s neck is commonly compared to ivory in ancient love literature. For example, in a piece of Greek love literature, Anacron compared the beauty of the neck of his beloved Bathyllus to ivory (Ode xxxix 28-29).

[7:4]  ⁴ sn It is impossible at the present time to determine the exact significance of the comparison of her eyes to the “gate of Bath-Rabbim” because this site has not yet been identified by archaeologists.