comparison here used, and leaves to the preposition ‏מִן‎ its natural signification. The omission of ‏הַר‎ in the Sept., Arabic, and a few MSS., is evidently owing to the carelessness of a transcriber. 2. Thy teeth, &c. The compliment passed upon the black hair is followed by another on the white teeth: “Thy teeth resemble in whiteness woolly sheep just washed.” This comparison will appear more striking when we remember that the wool of Scripture is proverbial for its whiteness, and is placed in juxtaposition with the colour of snow, Isa. i. 18; Dan. vii. 9; Rev. i. 14; Book of Enoch xlvi. 1. The Sept., which is followed by many modern commentators, takes the comparison to be between the shorn skin of the sheep and the teeth; but this is untenable. For, 1. The skin of shorn sheep can never have the whiteness which the context here demands; 2. Shorn sheep would yield a very incongruous figure, if teeth were compared with them; 3. Sheep, as now, were generally washed before and not after they were shorn; 4. The passage in vi. 6, shows that ‏קְצוּבוֹת‎ is merely a poetical epithet for ‏רְחֵלִים‎, not because they were then shorn, but because they are periodically shorn. The explanation of ‏קְצוּבוֹת‎ by well numbered (Rashi), or by ‏יש להן מדה אחת כאילו נחצבת כל אחת כמו חברתה‎, same size (Kimchi, Ibn Ezra), are against vi. 6. All of which are paired. That is, each upper tooth has its corresponding lower one; thus they, as it were, appear in pairs, like this flock of white sheep, each of which keeps to its mate, as they come up from the washing-pool. And no one of them is deprived of its fellow, i.e. no tooth is deprived of its corresponding one, just as none of the sheep is bereaved of its companion. The Hiphil of ‏תָּאַם‎, to be double, to be pairs (Exod. xxvi. 24; xxxvi. 29), is to make double, to make pairs, to appear paired. ‏שַׁכֻּלָּה‎ is deprived, bereaved, Jer. xviii. 21. On the masculine suffixes in ‏כֻּלָּם‎ and ‏בָּהֶם‎, referring to ‏קְצוּבוֹת‎, fem., see supra, ii. 7. The words ‏שֶׁכֻּלָּם‎ and ‏שַׁכֻּלָּה‎ form a paranomasia; see i. 2. The rendering of ‏מַתְאִימוֹת‎ by ‏כלם יולדות תאומים‎, all bearing twins (Kimchi, &c.), which some try to justify by submitting that sheep as well as goats in the East frequently bear twins (Arist. Hist. Anim. i. 6, 19; Theocret. i. 25; iii. 34), is incompatible with the figure. The teeth surely, which are here compared to the flock, cannot be said to bear twins like the sheep. Those who attempt to get over this difficulty by referring it to the rows of the teeth, are, to say the least, guilty of introducing a new subject.