3. Thy mouth is lovely. ‏מִדְבָּר‎ is translated by the Sept., Syriac, Vulg., Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, speech, language; but this is incompatible with the description here given, which depicts the members of the body, and not their actions. It is therefore more consonant with the context to take ‏מִדְבָּר‎ as a poetical expression for the instrument of speech; not the tongue (Schultens, Kleuker, Döpke), which is kept within the mouth, and not when put out (‏נָאֲוָה‎) beautiful; but the mouth itself, (Ewald, Gesenius, De Wette, Umbreit, Rosenmüller, Meier, Philippson, &c.) The objection of Magnus (who translates it voice), and of Hitzig (who translates it palate), that the rendering of mouth would produce tautology, inasmuch as the mouth consists of the lips, and these have already been described, is gratuitous: for an individual may have lips like scarlet, and yet not have a lovely mouth. The ‏מ‎ in ‏מִדְבָּר‎, added to the root ‏דָבַר‎, to speak, in order to form the noun, denotes the instrument with which one speaks: compare ‏מַזְלֵג‎, an instrument with which to draw out = a fork, from ‏זָלַג‎, to draw out; ‏מַפְתֵּחַ‎, an instrument for opening = a key, from ‏פָּתַח‎, to open, Gesen. § 84, 14; Ewald, § 160, 6. This corroborates the rendering we defended. Like a part of, &c. That is, the rosy cheeks visible beneath the veil resemble the vermilioned part of the pomegranate. Eastern poets frequently compare the colour of the cheeks with pomegranates and apples. Thus in a Persian ode quoted by Sir William Jones: “The pomegranate brings to my mind the blushes of my beloved, when her cheeks are covered with a modest resentment:” and Ibn Challecan, as adduced by Magnus in loco: “Believest thou that the apple can divert my looks from thee, when I behold thy cheeks?” Ibn Ezra, who is followed by some modern commentators, explains ‏פֶּלַח‎ by ‏ציץ הרמון האדום‎, the red flower of the pomegranate; but this is contrary to 2 Kings iv. 39, where the root ‏פלח‎ is used for dissecting fruit, and 1 Sam. xxx. 12. Others again take the simile to be between the interior of the pomegranate, when cut or burst open, and the cheeks; but this being flat would by no means represent the round form of the coloured cheek here referred to. The comparison appears natural, striking, and beautiful, according to Rashi’s explanation of ‏פֶּלַח‎, viz. ‏חצי רמון שבחוץ שהוא אדום‎, that external half of the pomegranate which is red, one half of the pomegranate being brown, and the other beautifully vermilioned, intermixed with yellow and white; and it is to the latter part to which reference is here made. So the Sept. λέπυρον, the peel, or the external. Rashbam, Döpke, Hitzig.