Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, yes, pleasant; and our couch is verdant.
Parallel translations
- KJV Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.
- BSB How handsome you are, my beloved! Oh, how delightful! The soft grass is our bed.
- 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 2:3As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, his fruit was sweet to my taste.
- Ps 45:2You are the most excellent of the sons of men. Grace has anointed your lips, therefore God has blessed you forever.
- Zech 9:17For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine the virgins.
- Rev 5:11–13I saw, and I heard something like a voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousands of ten thousands, and thousands of thousands;
- Song 5:10–16My beloved is white and ruddy. The best among ten thousand.
- Ps 110:3Your people offer themselves willingly in the day of your power, in holy array. Out of the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth.
- Song 3:7Behold, it is Solomon’s carriage! Sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel.
- Phil 3:8–9Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ
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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.