How handsome you are, my beloved! Oh, how delightful! The soft grass is our bed.
Parallel translations
- WEB Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, yes, pleasant; and our couch is verdant.
- KJV Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.
- NKJV Behold, you are handsome, my beloved! Yes, pleasant! Also our bed is green.
- NASB ¶“How handsome you are, my beloved, And so delightful! Indeed, our bed is luxuriant!
- NLT You are so handsome, my love, pleasing beyond words! The soft grass is our bed;
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The bride returns the praise, calling her beloved handsome and pleasant, and delights in their green resting place. It shows mutual love and shared joy.
Overview
She echoes his praise, calling him beautiful and pleasant, and rejoices that their couch is the verdant outdoors. Love here is reciprocal and at ease in God's good creation. The mutual delight pictures the joy of covenant fellowship, where the believer also finds the Lord altogether lovely (Song 5:16).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Song 2:3Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
- Ps 45:2You are the most handsome of men; grace has anointed your lips, since God has blessed you forever.
- Zech 9:17How lovely they will be, and how beautiful! Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine, the young women.
- Rev 5:11–13Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels and living creatures and elders encircling the throne, and their number was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.
- Song 5:10–16My beloved is dazzling and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand.
- Ps 110:3Your people shall be willing on Your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn, to You belongs the dew of Your youth.
- Song 3:7Behold, it is Solomon’s carriage, escorted by sixty of the mightiest men of Israel.
- Phil 3:8–9More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The poetry of covenant love between bride and bridegroom pictures, at its highest, the love of Christ for his church — the Bridegroom who gave himself for his bride.
How Song of Songs 1:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.