Possible alternative grammar of Songs 6:12

Question

Song of Songs 6:12 (לא ידעתי נפשי שמתני מרכבות עמי־נדיב) is usually translated according to the following grammatical structure:

"I know not, my soul hath set me in chariots of my noble people."

But could it also be reasonably natural in Hebrew to interpret "my soul" as the object of the verb "to know/perceive", and "my noble people" as the subject of "hath set me"?

In other words, I wonder whether one can understand the sense of the sentence as being:

"Before I was even conscious of what was happening to me, my noble people had put me in chariots".

(Sorry if this is a very basic question, I've never learnt Hebrew.)

Answer 1

"I don't know my soul" is a perfectly valid way to read the text. Job 9:21 is a close parallel (לֹא אֵדַע נַפְשִׁי), from which we can deduce that "I don't know my soul" is an expression of confusion or strong emotion. Here the words לֹא יָדַעְתִּי נַפְשִׁי are the equivalent but conjugated as perfect instead of imperfect. This reading is suggested by E. S. Hartom in his commentary on the verse (in Hebrew).

Your interpretation of the rest of the verse, "my noble people had put me in chariots," is less grammatical, because the word שָׂמַתְנִי is 3rd person feminine. But by changing the vowels on the consonantal text, it could be read as 2nd person singular (שַֹמְתָּנִי) or plural (שַֹמְתֻּנִי), so you could read "you have put me in the chariots of my noble people" or "you have put me in chariots, my noble people."