Your neck is like an ivory tower: see comments on this phrase in 4.4. Ivory tower refers to a tower decorated with ivory (as in Psa 45.8; Amos 6.4), although it is possible that the young woman’s neck is compared to a slender ivory tusk. We can give its meaning as “Your neck is smooth like a piece of ivory.” We can also say “Your neck stands tall like a tower of ivory.” If ivory is not known we can substitute a more general expression, “Your neck is tall and straight as a beautiful tower.”
Your eyes are pools in Heshbon: a typical Hebrew wordplay is found in this verse, as eyes and pools are the same word in Hebrew. Comparison of the eyes with pools of water may also be related to the reflective quality of the pool, or of light sparkling on the surface of the water. Note that, while the first figure is a simile (with the comparison word like), here we have a strict metaphor. In many languages it may be necessary to change this into a simile as well.
Heshbon is a city in the land of Moab on the eastern side of the Jordan valley; it had once been the capital of the Amorite king Sihon. We can only guess at why Heshbon was chosen to illustrate the young woman’s eyes, since there were similar pools for water storage in almost every ancient city. It is possible that Heshbon was chosen simply because it sounds like the word “ivory” (hashen) in the previous description. We will probably have to retain the name in translation, but we will need to make it clear that “Heshbon” refers to a town.
By the gate of Bath-rabbim: we presume that the pools in Heshbon were near a gate of this name. All physical evidence of this location is now lost, but it does not affect our translation. The extended metaphor here clearly refers to the location of the pools within the city, and so it does not mean that her eyes were by the gate! Rabbim is a plural form of the word “many,” “much,” “great,” so there have been various attempts to bring out this meaning. New English Bible says “the gate of the crowded city,” while Good News Translation gives a similar though slightly repetitive phrase, “in the city of Heshbon, near the gate of that great city.” Bath has the same form as the Hebrew word “daughter,” so bath-rabbim can mean “daughter of great people,” similar to the name used for the young woman in 7.2 (“daughter of a noble”). This wordplay then is an indirect compliment. One possibility for translation is to follow Revised Standard Version, putting the proper noun in the text and then adding a footnote to indicate the possible wordplay.
Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon: the two qualities suggested by this image are “high” and “straight.” There are several references to Lebanon in these poems, in most cases referring to high mountainous areas. The definite article is attached to the Hebrew phrase, though Revised Standard Version and others render it a tower of Lebanon. This may give the impression that there were many of them and cause us to miss the point that the imagery means only to suggest height. A high or long nose is not necessarily a thing of beauty in every culture. For the Israelite a high nose was beautiful, and our translation may point that out.
The definite article attached to the word tower means that there was one particular tower in the poet’s mind, and this is further described in the extended simile as overlooking Damascus. In translation we can say “your nose is beautiful, it is high like the tower….” However, it is also possible to convey the thought by rendering the noun tower as an adjective describing the mountains of Lebanon. In this case we can say “… high like the towering mountains of Lebanon, which overlook Damascus.” Good News Translation “that stands guard” is a free and poetic rendering of the preposition translated by Revised Standard Version as overlooking. In some languages this may seem a humorous way to speak of a nose and so should probably not be used as a model.
For translation we can suggest:
• Your neck stands tall like an ivory tower.
Your eyes shine like the pools of Heshbon,
By the gate called Bath Rabbim.*
Your nose stands straight like the tower of Lebanon,
the tower facing toward Damascus.
Footnote: * Bath Rabbim is the name of the gate, but it sounds like “daughter of great ones,” a probable wordplay with “daughter of a noble” in verse 1.
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Song of Songs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1998. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .