The king has brought me, &c. It was the king, she tells us, who brought her into his apartments, and thus separated her from her beloved, in whom, however, she still delights. That this is the import of this clause is obvious from the words and connexion. The Shulamite began with invoking her absent beloved in the third person; but no sooner had she expressed her desire to be with him, than he is, as it were, present to her mind, and she forthwith, dropping the third person, addresses him in the second, and so continues to speak to him throughout the third verse. She begins the fourth verse in the same way, imploring her beloved, in the second person, to take her away, telling him that “the king, ‘HE,’ has brought her into his apartments” (mark the change from the second to the third person); and then continues and finishes her address to her beloved in the second person. Now we ask, do not the words ‏הֱבִיאַנִי הַמֶּלֶךְ חֲדָרָיו‎, the king, “HE,” has brought me into his apartments, placed between ‏מָשְׁכֵנִי אַחֲרֶיךָ‎, do “THOU” draw me after thee, and ‏נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בָּךְ וגו׳‎, we exult and rejoice in “THEE,” &c., clearly show that the king here referred to is a separate person from the beloved to whom the maiden is addressing herself? We venture to affirm that few readers of the original Hebrew, whose minds are not biassed by a preconceived theory, can carefully peruse these three verses without observing that TWO persons are here introduced—viz. the beloved to whom, and the king of whom, the damsel speaks. Ibn Ezra, Immanuel, the Anonymous MS. Commentary, &c., could not help seeing this, and explained the passage, “Were even the king to bring me into his apartments, I should rejoice and be glad in thee” (the shepherd). The Septuagint, which is followed by the Vulgate, has again ‏דַּדֶּיךָ‎, thy breast, instead of ‏דֹדֶיךָ‎, thy love; but see supra, ver. 2.