What is Song of Songs 5:14 referring to?

Question

Song of Songs 5:14 references a body part of the beloved that is usually translated as "belly" (KJV) or "body" (ESV, NIV) which resembles polished ivory. According to the commentary in my ESV edition, the exact meaning of the Hebrew word for this anatomical region is uncertain.

His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires (KJV).

I have no knowledge of Hebrew, but to me, it sounds like the text is referring to the beloved's abdomen, which perhaps is muscular and chiselled like polished ivory, or perhaps is white like ivory (demonstrating his noble status as he is not tanned by sun exposure during manual labour). However, I have seen claims that the ivory is an allusion to or euphemism for his penis (as in an ivory tusk), which would make the text somewhat explicit. Is there any merit to this interpretation?

Answer 1

The word מֵעָיו (from מֵעָה/MēâH), at the literal level of its primary immediate meaning, is not “belly.” In Hebrew, “belly” is typically בֶּטֶן, largely in reference to the womb: Gen 30:2, Ps 22(23):10-11; in Prov 22:18, we find it referring to safeguarding with one’s conscience or intellectual care (in the “purity of one’s heart [טְהָר-לֵב],” cf. Prov 22:11); in 1Kgs 7:20, הַבֶּטֶן takes on an architectural meaning in reference to the convexity in the capital of the two pillars the verse describes.

It does not either primarily mean “abdomen” in a strictly bodily sense (nor is translating it by “body,” as some translations do, an accurate option). If speaking, by analogy, of an outward and distinguished aspect (some cultured, gleaming feature), מֵעָה may be used to mean something like a “polished abdomen.” Overall, however, מֵעָה primarily takes on the meaning of “inmost/innermost parts,” as in Isa 16:11 and Ps 40:9 (referring to the imprinting of the divine Episteme, or Torah, in the Davidic Messiah’s inmost parts, which alludes to his conscience); the physical basis for the analogy most modern interpreters will be mostly interested in (to stop at the physical basis without minding the analogy so much) is found in the literal meaning of מעה, namely: “entrails,” “bowels,” “intestines.”

In Isa 16:11, the same verse comprised מֵעַי/“my innermost parts” (in reference to the structure of the intellect) and קִרְבִּי/“my innards” (in reference to the guts, we might say today the “gut feelings”).

Based on a trained knowledge of biblical Hebrew, I will give here a literal translation of Song of Songs 5:14b:

.מֵעָיו עֶשֶׁת שֵׁן מְעֻלֶּפֶת סַפִּירִים

“…, His [ו] inmost parts [speaking of the Incarnate Beloved] are as shiny as ivory inlaid with sapphires.”

Something that is “shiny as ivory inlaid with sapphires” cannot be the same as some literal “intestines” (wherein no ivory and sapphire-like properties are to be found). Even in its literalness, the text of Song of Songs 5:14b, relying on an innards-like physical basis (the viscera meant to remain within) is speaking about the innermost parts of the Beloved’s intellect, whose spiritual properties (the nature of the intellect being intrinsically spiritual) resemble the shine of ivory (שֵׁן) and sapphires (סַפִּירִים).

Here is how Rashi (1040 – 1105), French rabbi and Hebraic master of the פְּשָׁט (simple, straight, literal) and רֶמֶז (insinuating, allegorical) stratifications of the meaning of Scripture, renders it by marrying types and figures from Sacred History into his רֶמֶז reading, quoting verse 14 in its entirety:

“The Tablets, His handiwork, are desirable above even rolls of gold; they are studded with commandments precious as gems; the Torah’s innards [innermost parts] are sparkling as ivory intricately inlaid with precious stones.”

Typical modern readings of the Song of Songs, disconnected from traditional exegesis, yield pointless insights, in keeping with the poison of Modernism.

Answer 2

The Hebrew bible is well known for using euphemisms for the male organ and the authors usually avoid directly saying "penis". Examples include basar (“flesh”, Exodus 28:42), regel (“leg”, 2 Kings 18:27 and many other places), or even yad (“hand”, Isaiah 57:8).

Song of Songs itself uses "chair" (אַפִּרְיוֹן) as a euphemism in 3:9–11. It describes its coloration and the fact that love is within the "chair". 5:14 is even more explicit and describes both golden hands (often a euphemism) and מֵעָיו as ivory, which is evocative of a tusk.

1. (Athalya Brenner, The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and ‘Sexuality’ in the Hebrew Bible).

Answer 3

Arintero, O.P., The Song of Songs: A Mystical Exposition p. 447:

The ivory symbolizes the purity, candor and innocence of His sacred breast… and the sapphires, with their blue color, recall the graces, virtues and celestial gifts with which, for our benefit, His loving heart is filled and adorned.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 14 in Homilies on the Song of Songs pp. 436-41 gives a much more in-depth exegesis:

When nature’s Lawgiver presented to Moses the law engraved on stone tablets, he called these flat surfaces “writing tablets of stone”²⁰ on which the divine characters were stamped, | for the One who gave Moses orders regarding them said, “Come up the mountain to me and stay there, and I will give you the writing tablets of stone, the law and the commandments” (Exod 24:12). But later, when the law had been scraped clean of everything corporeal and earthy by the clarity of the gospel, the writing tablet that took the letters was no longer made of stone but of gleaming and newly polished ivory, for it says that the recipient of the commandments and laws—which is called belly—is an ivory tablet on a sapphire stone.

Now first of all, I think, we ought to clarify in explicit terms the sense of the corporeal sign and then by this route arrive at a discerning understanding of the words. Boxwood is a hardwood of off-white color, out of which scribes fashion themselves flat boards for writing. Such a small board, which has been constructed for purposes of writing, is by analogy called a writing tablet²¹ even if it happens to have been made of some other material. So when we hear “writing tablets,” we think of a smooth-surfaced device for writing. Since, then, “writing tablet” is a generic name for such flat boards, the Word in our text adds a mention of the specific kind of material that characterizes | this instance and says that the writing tablet is made not of wood but of ivory. Now they say that because this kind of bone is very hard and solid, it endures without decay for the longest possible period and is unharmed by time. For its part, the sapphire, in virtue of its deep blue color, is contrived so as to afford relief to the tired eyes of those who labor devotedly at reading the written-over tablet, since its glow naturally and of itself gives rest to the eyes.

Such, then, is the model to which the church’s belly is likened for purposes of praise. But hearing from the prophecy this command spoken as from God, “Write down the vision, and plainly on a writing tablet” (Hab 2:2), I am led to wonder what one should understand by the word “belly” as it pertains to the body of the Lord that is being praised. For if the Word instructs us to write the divine vision down clearly on a tablet, it may be the case that by “belly” it means the purity of heart by which our memory registers the divine visions in writing. Further, the One who as it were opened the mouth of the great Ezekiel and put into it the scroll of the book that was full of letters on either side, both inside and outside, said to him, “Your mouth shall eat and your belly shall be filled” (Ezek 3:3), thus giving the name “belly” to | that in the soul which thinks and reasons, in which the divine teachings are deposited. Similarly we note that the great Jeremiah sets the name “belly” to the heart that is afflicted by those melancholy thoughts of his, on whose account he says, “My belly is pained, and the sense organs of my heart quiver” (Jer 4:19)!²² And if it is necessary for us to set out the principal scriptural testimony that leads us to this idea, we say what the Lord said to those who believed when he asserted that rivers of living water flow from the belly of those who believe in him. Here are his words: “He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his belly²³ shall flow rivers of living water’ ” (John 7:38).

So by all of these testimonies we are led to understand the pure heart when the word “belly” is used, and this becomes the tablet of the divine law in those who, as the apostle says, show “that they have the requirement of the law written in their hearts” (Rom 2:15), who have such letters graven in their soul not by ink but by the Spirit of the living God, “not on tablets of stone” (2 Cor 3:3), as the apostle says, but on the pure, white, and polished | writing tablet of the heart. For such must the governing part of the soul be if it is to be stamped with a clear and distinct memory of the divine oracles, spelled out in clear letters.²⁴

And rightly too is the sapphire associated with such a tablet for praise of the belly, for the sapphire’s gleam is the color of the sky. This enigma of the sapphire signifies that our heart thinks and looks upon things above, where our treasure is stored, and there rests its eyes, so that as the heavenly hope refreshes the power of the soul’s eyes, we do not falter in attentiveness to the divine injunctions.

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References

20. Πυξία λίθινα, but see below, n. 21.

21. Greek πυξίον. Exod 24:12, cited above in the text, calls the tablets of the law πυξία (which means literally tablets made of boxwood [πύξος]) and then describes them as made of stone. Gregory explains that scribes tend to make a “flat board” for writing (πινάκιον) out of boxwood but that small writing tablets are called πυξία even if they are made of some other material. English cannot capture the relation between the Greek words for “boxwood” and for “tablet.”

22. Gregory makes “sense organs” (αἰσθητήρια) the subject of the verb “quiver” (μαιμάσσει), which is more usually taken to belong to the next statement. He may be quoting by heart.

23. It is interesting that the RSV translates κοιλία (“belly”) in John 7:38 as though it were καρδία (“heart”), thus perhaps lending verisimilitude to Gregory’s exegesis. Compare the AV, which is stricter in rendering the Greek.

24. See the similar image in Plato, Theaet. 194C-D (which is interesting here especially for its analogy for memory: imprints on a waxen tablet), and of course in Jer 31:33.