(This question may also relate to the question What are the banner-bearers in Songs 6:4 and 6:10, and why is the word feminine?)
According to Bible Hub's Interlinear Bible, in
- Songs 1:6, "do not look at me"
- Songs 2:7 and 3:5, "that you do not wake and that you do not awaken love"
- likewise Songs 8:4, "do not wake and do not awaken love"
- Songs 5:8, "if you find my beloved"
the verb is masculine plural, even though the people being addressed are explicitly the יְרוּשָׁלִָ֑ם בְּנ֣וֹת ("daughters of Jerusalem", with "daughters" being a feminine plural noun).
Other points in Song of Songs where the accompanying people - who may or may not be the same "daughters of Jerusalem" - are treated grammatically as masculine plural are:
- "Eat, friends; drink, and get drunk on, love" (Songs 5:1), where both the noun "friends" and all the verbs are masculine plural.
- "How you would gaze upon the Shulammitess" (Songs 6:13), addressing those who had said "Return, return, O Shulammitess, return, return, that we may gaze upon you"; here the verb "you would gaze" is masculine plural.
But despite the "daughters of Jerusalem" having a masculine plural verb, the "daughters of Zion" addressed in Songs 3:11 have a feminine plural verb! ("Go out and look, O daughters of Zion, upon King Solomon...", where both imperatives are feminine plural; the word "daughters" is the same word בְּנ֥וֹת as in "daughters of Jerusalem".) Incidentally, the previous sentence ends by mentioning the "daughters of Jerusalem".
Why are the "daughters of Jerusalem" being treated as grammatically masculine? Are they all women, or not?
(And why is it different from the "daughters of Zion", who are treated as grammatically feminine?)