15. With a garden-fountain, &c. To finish the picture of this charming garden, the shepherd introduces into it fountains, streams, rills, and cooling breezes, to rouse and waft the balmy fragrance through its delightful retreats. The fact that the Shulamite has been called a sealed fountain proves that this verse is not descriptive of her. For it would be contradictory to call her in one verse a sealed fountain, and in the other a stream flowing from Lebanon, i.e. an open stream. ‏מַעְיַן גַּנִּים‎ a fountain of gardens, i.e. a fountain belonging to gardens, usually found in gardens to irrigate them. ‏נֹזְליִם‎, a part. noun plur., denoting flowing streams. The ‏מִן‎ indicates the place whence these streams issue. ‏מַיִם חַיִּים‎ living water, i.e. perennial; waters, gushing forth from fountains, or moving along, appear as if they were living; whilst those in a stagnant condition seem dead. Gen. xxvi. 19; Jer. ii. 13; Zech. xiv. 8; see also ὕδωρ ζῶν, Rev. vii. 17, and flumen vivum, Virg. Æn. ii. 719. 16. Arise, O north wind! These are still the words of the shepherd, who, to complete the picture, invokes the gentle breezes to perflate this paradise. Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Williams, Good, Ewald, Delitzsch, Philippson, &c., take this clause to begin her reply; but this is incompatible with the figure. She herself, and not anything separate, has been described as this charming garden. She could, therefore, not say “blow through MY garden” (‏גַנִּי‎), which would imply that this garden of hers was something apart from her person. Moreover, the expression ‏גַנּוֹ‎, his garden, which she uses, shows that ‏גַנִּי‎, my garden, is spoken by him. So Rashi, Döpke, Magnus, Hitzig, &c. That the south and north winds are merely poetical designations for a gale generally, without any particular reference to the peculiarities of the wind when blowing from these respective regions is evident from a comparison of Numb. xi. 31 with Ps. lxxviii. 26. This does away with the conflicting conjectures which have been hazarded, to account for the invocation of the wind from these opposite quarters of the earth. ‏צָפוֹן‎ and ‏תֵּימָן‎, prop. the north and southern quarters, are poetically used, ‏רוּחַ צָפוֹן‎, and ‏רוּחַ תֵּימָן‎, the north and south wind. Ps. lxviii. 26. ‏בְּשָׂמִים‎, spices, here their odours.