The imperfect form ‏יִשַּׁקֵנִי‎ is used optatively or voluntatively, “Oh that he would kiss me!” (Gesen. § 127, 3 b; Ewald, § 224 a); i.e. a kiss: the subject, either in the singular (Gen. xxviii. 11, compare v. 18; Exod. vi. 25; Ps. cxxxvii. 3), or plural (Gen. xxx. 14; Exod. xvii. 5; 2 Sam. xi. 17), is to be supplied from the plural noun ‏מִנְּשִׁיקוֹת‎, as indicated by the partitive ‏מִן‎. (Compare Gesen. § 154, 3 c; Ewald, § 217, b, i. b.) The singular, however, is preferable, for the Shulamite does not wish so much for a number of kisses as for the presence of her beloved; one would be sufficient if he could only come. We thus obtain a phrase ‏נָשָׁק נְשִׁיקָה‎, to kiss a kiss, i.e. to give a kiss; corresponding to ‏יָעַץ עֵצָה‎, to counsel a counsel, i.e. to give counsel, 2 Sam. xvi. 23; ‏חָלָה חֳלִי‎, 2 Kings xiii. 14. This construction is of frequent occurrence in Hebrew, and is also found in Greek and Latin; (Compare νοσεῖν νόσον, pugnam pugnare; Gesen. § 138 i., Rem. 1; Ewald, § 281 a.) The rendering, therefore, of ‏מִן‎ by with (Luther, English Version, Good, Williams, &c.) is incorrect. Ewald’s and Herxheimer’s translation, Let one of the kisses kiss me, is both incongruous and ungrammatical; for in the first place, it is not the kiss that kisses, but the individual; and secondly, ‏נְשִׁיקָה‎ is feminine, which would require ‏תִּשַּׁקֵנִי‎, the third fem. ‏דוֹדִים‎, prop. love, the abstract, which, as in Greek and Latin, is in Hebrew frequently expressed by the plural, (comp. ‏חַיִּים‎, life, ‏מַמְתַּקִים‎, sweetness, ‏מַחִמַדִים‎, beauty; vide infra, v. 16; Gesen. § 108, 2 a; Ewald, § 179 a), here metonomically for the expressions of it—love-tokens, caresses. So Lee, Magnus, Noyes, Fürst, Philippson, &c. This rendering is demanded by the context, for this clause gives the cause of the statement in the preceding one. The change from the third person ‏יִשַּׁקֵנִי‎, to the second ‏דֹדָיךָ‎, or from the second to the third person, is an enallage of frequent occurrence in sacred poetry. (Deut. xxxii. 15; Isa. i. 29; Jer. xxii. 24; Gesen. § 137, 3, Rem. 3.) The Sept. and Vulg. have ‏דַּדֶּיךָ‎, thy breasts, instead of ‏דֹדֶיךָ‎, thy caresses. That this is a gross error is evident from the fact that a man and not a woman is here addressed. To appeal to the catachresis in Isa. lx. 16, would be preposterous.