15. Behold, thou art beautiful. That is, “It is not I who possess such attraction, it is thou who art beautiful, yea superlatively beautiful!” The repetition of ‏הִנָךְ יָפָה‎ enhances the idea. “Thine eyes are doves,” i.e. “Thine eyes, in which ‘the rapt soul is sitting,’ beams forth the purity and constancy of the dove.” As the eye is the inlet of ideas to the mind, so it is also the outlet of inward feelings. Thus it expresses many of the passions, such as pity, mildness, humility, anger, envy, pride, &c.; hence the phrases ‏עַין טוֹב‎ (which we also have), to look with an eye of compassion, Prov. xxii. 9; ‏עַיִן רַע‎, ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρὸς, an evil eye, Deut. xv. 9, Mark vii. 22. The dove is the emblem of purity and constancy. Ps. lvi. 1; Matt. x. 16. ‏עֵינַיִךְ יוֹנִים‎ are taken by the Syriac, Vulg., Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Immanuel, Luther, Authorized Version, Kleuker, Percy, Gesenius, Döpke, Rosenmüller, Meier, &c. as an ellipsis for ‏עֵינֶיךָ עֵינֵי יוֹנִים‎, thine eyes are doves’ eyes. Gesen. § 144, Rem. Ewald, § 296, b. But such an ellipsis can be tolerated only in extreme emergencies, whereas here the natural construction yields an excellent sense. Besides, v. 2 proves that the doves themselves, and not the eyes, are the point of comparison, just as the hair and the teeth are (iv. 1, 2) compared to the goats and sheep themselves, and not merely to their hair and teeth. And ‏עֵינַיִךְ בְרֵכוֹת‎ (vii. 4), which does not mean, thou hast fish-ponds eyes, but, thine eyes are like the fish-ponds themselves. Hence the Sept., Chald., Rashi, Mendelssohn, Hodgson, Ewald, Umbreit, Magnus, Williams, Hengstenberg, Philippson, Hitzig, rightly reject this elliptical construction.