Charles Ellicott Commentary Song Of Solomon 2:17

"Until the day be cool, and the shadows flee away, Turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart Upon the mountains of Bether." — Song Of Solomon 2:17 (ASV)

Until the day break. —Hebrew: breathe, that is, becomes cool, as it does when the evening breeze sets in. The time indicated is therefore evening, “the breathing blushing hour” (Campbell).

(Compare Genesis 3:8, The cool of the day—margin: wind. This interpretation is also fixed by the mention of the flying, that is, lengthening shadows. Compare Virgil, Eclogues 1.84: “Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbræ; ” and Tennyson, The Brook—

“We turned our foreheads from the falling sun,
And followed our own shadows, thrice as long
As when they followed us.”)

Bether. —Margin: of division; Septuagint: of ravines or hollows, either as separating the lovers or as intersected by valleys. Gesenius compares Bethron (2 Samuel 2:29).