Conquest

Song of Songs 7 contains a number of references to the conquest.    The bride’s eyes are like “pools in Heshbon” (7:4), and Heshbon is the capital city of Sihon of the Amorites (Numbers 21:26), who was one of the first kings conquered by the Hebrews as they came to the Transjordan.  The bride is a tree with “clusters” from the vine (Song of Songs 7:7-8;  eshcol ), recalling the clusters gathered from the land, so huge that the place got named “Eshcol” (Numbers 13:23).  That the beloved is a palm tree takes us back to Exodus 15:27, not to mention Jericho the “city of palms” (Judges 3:13).

The bride is the land.  The lover is delighting in the land as Israel was supposed to delight in it, as Yahweh delighted in it.

This might help us with “pools of Heshbon.”

Eyes like pools are standard love-lyric equipment.  But why the specificity about the location of the pools?   The pools are in Heshbon at the “gate of Bat-rabbim” (“daughter of many”).  If Heshbon is the “gateway to the land,” then the pools are pools at the gate.  They would then correspond to the laver and sea of Israel’s sanctuaries: Entering the land meant passing through or by the pools.  The pools are eyes, also fitting at an entry way, where a “watch” is stationed.

Her eyes, then, are not merely reflective, deep, and all the other things that eyes-as-pools suggest.  They are also watchful guardians of the bride.  To get to the “land” that is the bride, the lover has to pass the watch, has to undergo the inspection of the bride’s eyes.