7:11–13 The woman invited the man to go with her to the fields and vineyards

In these verses the woman responded to the man’s praise (in 7:1–9a) by inviting him to go out into the fields and vineyards with her to enjoy the springtime. As trees and flowers were blooming, their love for each other was also growing. Here she invited him to go there, as he also invited her in 2:10–13.

In 7:11–13, all the events are probably not arranged in the order that they happened (as is common in poetry). It is also possible that these verses describe the woman’s desires and feelings or a dream that she had before her wedding (3:6–5:1), rather than an event that happened in her life. The exact meaning of 7:11–13 is difficult to determine, but the verses do seem to look forward to the future.

7:11–13 The woman spoke to the man

7:11a

Come, my beloved, let us go to the countryside: Here the woman invited the man to go out of the city with her to enjoy the countryside together. He was already with her as she spoke to him, so she was not calling him to come. She wanted him to go with her to the fields.

Some other ways to translate this meaning are:

Come with me, my love, and let’s go out to the fields
-or-
My darling, let’s go to the fields together

In some languages it is more natural to put the phrase my beloved in a different place in the sentence, as in the second example above. Use a natural way in your language to give an invitation like this.

my beloved: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as my beloved is the most common way that the woman used to address the man. It first occurred in 1:13. It is good to translate this word in the same way in all the verses where she used it to address him.

to the countryside: Here the woman invited/urged her beloved to go with her into the countryside. She wanted to go there to the fields to see the springtime blossoms and to be alone with the man. Other ways to translate this are:

let us go out into the fields… (Revised English Bible)
-or-
let us go to the countryside… (NET Bible)

7:11b

let us spend the night among the wildflowers: The word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as spend the night does not imply that the man and woman wanted to stay longer than one night. Other ways to translate this meaning are:

let us lodge in the villages. (Revised Standard Version)
-or-
and stay overnight in ⌊one of⌋ the villages.

among the wildflowers: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as wildflowers can also mean “henna bushes,” as in 2:14. Scholars differ about what it means here:

(1) It means “villages.” For example:

let us spend the night in the villages. (New International Version)

(2) It means “henna bushes.” For example:

to lie among the henna bushes (Revised English Bible)

It is recommended that you follow option (1), with the majority of English versions. Some scholars think that the meaning “villages” is unlikely, because the man and woman wanted to be alone. However, the villages were not as crowded as the city. The villages were closer to the vineyards and pomegranate trees, so that the man and woman could look at them in the early morning (see the following note in 7:12a).

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