Your head crowns you is literally “Your head upon you.” The young man compares his lover’s head to Mount Carmel, the mountain that juts out into the sea at the western end of the Jezreel valley. Commentators generally believe this means that the young woman stands proud and majestic like the mountain. As there is no verb in the Hebrew, one will have to be supplied in the translation. Revised Standard Version suggests crowns you, trying to capture the proud way she holds her head. New English Bible “You carry your head like Carmel” is a possibility, though it does not make the basis of the comparison clear. Also, it can be easily misunderstood because of the idiomatic use of the verb “carry.” The suggestion of Jerusalem Bible and Good News Translation “Your head is held high like Carmel” also uses the verb “hold” in a metaphorical way—the young woman does not hold her head in her hands! The imagery seems to be based on the height and prominence of Mount Carmel.

In many situations the proper noun Carmel will need to be qualified with “mount” or “mountain.” Note that the word also carries a secondary meaning, because it sounds like the Hebrew word karmil “red.” New Jerusalem Bible in fact translates it as “crimson wool,” making it parallel to the following phrase, “locks of purple.” As this is the Song’s first reference to red hair, it seems wiser to retain the traditional translation “like Carmel.” We can say “Your head is majestic and tall, like Mount Carmel.”

Your flowing locks are like purple: the text is literally “the flowing of your head.” The verb comes from the Hebrew root that means “to hang down.” Certainly it is acceptable to say “your long flowing hair,” as this is what is intended. Good News Translation “braided hair” and Jerusalem Bible “plaits” are both too narrow, as renderings, since the hair may hang loose.

Purple: hair is not naturally purple, though if it is intensely black and shiny it may take on a purplish tinge. In modern English we can refer to something very black as “a blue black.” New English Bible offers “lustrous black” probably because of this feature. When Good News Translation says it is like “finest satin,” we presume that it means it has a shiny appearance like satin cloth; New International Version seems to follow this idea, with “royal tapestry.” However, these last two examples are unlikely. There are those who believe that the young woman has dyed her hair purple, perhaps following some fashion of that day. We prefer the idea that purple has the sense of “luster.” Where the color purple does not exist in the vocabulary, perhaps “shiny black” will serve. Black is the actual color of her hair suggested in 4.1.

For translation we can say:

• Your long hair shines deep purple.

• Your long flowing hair is so black and shiny.

A king is held captive in the tresses: a king refers to the young man himself, or to the general form “any king”; so rather than translate as a king, we can say “your king,” or even “any king.” See 1.4, 12; 3.9. He is saying to his lover that he is bound or held captive, in the figurative sense that he is so affected by her beauty that he cannot move. That beauty is also seen in her tresses or hair. The word tresses is something of a problem because the Hebrew word basically means a water channel or trough (Gen 30.38). It is the context, namely the mention of hair in the previous clause, which leads most commentators to agree that here the word refers to the young woman’s hair. Good News Translation handles the problem by rendering “its beauty.” As this is what seemed to captivate him, this is an appropriate way to bring out the sense. The preposition in can be better rendered “by”—the king is captivated by the beauty of her hair. He would hardly be tangled in her hair in the literal sense, though that is how many translations can be interpreted. Translation can be “Even a king would be captivated by the beauty of your hair” or “The beauty of your hair has me, your king, in its spell.”

The whole verse can then be rendered:

• Your hold your head high, like Mount Carmel,
Your hair, flowing down and shiny black.
Its beauty could capture any king.

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 .