Charles Ellicott Commentary Song Of Solomon 7:9

"And thy mouth like the best wine, That goeth down smoothly for my beloved, Gliding through the lips of those that are asleep." — Song Of Solomon 7:9 (ASV)

Causing the lips.

The text in this verse has evidently undergone some change. The Septuagint, instead of siphtheî yesheynîm (lips of sleepers), reads sephathaîm veshinnayîm, χείλεσί μου καὶ ὸδοῦσι. The marginal reading, instead of yesheynîm (sleepers), reads yeshanîm (the ancient), which Luther adopts, translating it as “of the previous year.” Ledôdî (for my beloved) is evidently either an accidental insertion by the copyist, whose eye might have caught dôdî in the next verse, or, more probably, it is incorrectly voweled.

The verse is untranslatable as it stands. However, by reading ledôdaî (“to my caresses”; compare Song of Solomon 1:2; Song of Solomon 4:10; Song of Solomon 7:12), we obtain a meaning entirely harmonious with the context. This alteration is less drastic than rejecting ledôdî altogether.

This is the old figure, comparing kisses to wine (compare Song of Solomon 1:2; Song of Solomon 2:4; Song of Solomon 5:1). The roof of the mouth (compare Song of Solomon 5:16), or palate, is used by metonymy for the mouth generally.

Dôbeb can be derived either from the root dôb (cognate with zôb, meaning “to flow gently”), in which case it means suffusing. If so, we would translate: “Your mouth pours out an exquisite wine, which runs sweetly down in answer to my caresses, and suffuses (Septuagint: ἱκανούμενος, accommodating itself to) our lips as we fall asleep.”

Alternatively, according to the Rabbinical interpretation followed by the Authorized Version (which connects dôbeb with dabab, a Talmudic word meaning “speaking”), it may contain the idea of a dream causing the lips to move as if in speech. In this case, the lines of Shelley suggest the meaning:

“Like lips murmuring in their sleep
Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there.”

Epipsychidion.