Two parallel phrases describe the young woman’s lover. Both this verse and the following commence with the metaphor of perfume—myrrh and henna—and then refer to the lover with the phrase My beloved is to me …. The third component in the structure is the preposition “between, in.”

My beloved: the term appears frequently and is reserved for her lover (see 2.8, 9, 10, 16, 17, and other places); it has parallels in most languages. Though in other contexts it can refer to a relative such as an uncle, here it is more private and intimate. We can say “the one I love,” “my lover,” or “my darling.”

The young woman compares her lover to a bag of myrrh. Myrrh, a fragrance made from the bark of a tree found in Arabia and India, was traditionally used for embalming the dead as well as to make a person sweet-smelling. Pro 7.17 and Est 2.12 indicate its connection with marriage and thus with lovemaking. We can render it “[sweet-smelling] perfume.” A bag is the small (cloth) bag into which the spice was placed, then hung around the person’s neck. This may be an item that is not known in the some languages or cultures, so a footnote may be appropriate. In English the word bag can refer to something quite large. Actually it was rather small, so a word like “sachet” or a phrase like “small bag” seems more appropriate.

That lies between my breasts: the verb lies actually means “spend the night” as in 2 Sam 12.16. It suggests much more than simply lying down. “Sleep the night” catches its sense. New Jerusalem Bible expresses the intimacy with “lodged between my breasts.” In translating these lines Revised Standard Version sees the bag of myrrh as the thing that lies between the breasts, but the Hebrew is ambiguous. Dividing the sentence in another way gives the impression that it is the young man who lies there. Pope translates:

• A bundle of myrrh is my love to me,
Between my breasts he lodges.

Based on the line that follows, other versions such as New Jerusalem Bible interpret as Revised Standard Version does:

• My beloved to me is a bag of myrrh
Lodged between my breasts.

As the Hebrew text is ambiguous, either interpretation can be adopted.

In many languages, however, it will be necessary to make this metaphor clearer with words of comparison, “like” or “as”; for example, “My lover lies between my breasts [all night] like a sachet of myrrh,” or “Like my sachet of sweet-smelling myrrh, my beloved lies nestled between my breasts.” In some languages it may not be natural or acceptable to refer to the young woman’s breasts. If breasts is not rendered literally, we can say “chest” or substitute a personal pronoun, “close to me.”

Good News Translation suggests “My lover has the scent of myrrh as he lies upon my breasts,” but this is slightly misleading. The point of the metaphor does not seem to be how pleasant the lover smells, but rather that he is “lodged between” her breasts, like her sachet, staying close to her all night. We can translate as:

• My beloved, like a sachet of perfume, sleeps the night on my breast.

If a reference to the breasts must be avoided, we can say:

• My lover spends the night close to me like a sachet of sweet-smelling perfume [on my chest].

• My lover is like a sweet sachet sleeping close to me all the night.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Song of Songs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1998. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .