My friend

The Lover calls his bride his “darling” (Song of Songs 1:9, NASB). The Hebrew is ra’yah , and this is the first use of the word. Of the 10 uses in the Hebrew Bible, nine are in the Song and always the Lover’s term of endearment for his Beloved (1:15; 2:2, 10, 13; 4:1, 7; 5:2; 6:4). Several times it is joined with the phrase “my fair one” ( yapheh ; 1:15, 2:10, 13) and sometimes linked with blemishless beauty (4:7).

The word puns in a couple of directions. It is related to the noun rea’ , meaning “friend” or “fellow” or “neighbor.” This root is behind one of the names given to Moses’ father-in-law, Reuel, “friend of God.” It’s the word in Leviticus 19:18: Love your neighbor as yourself. There are various forms that build on this word in various contexts, some specifically feminine and some specifically masculine.

Friendship implies companionship and affection, but also implied co-belligerency.

In royal contexts, the word refers not merely to a buddy, a pal, but to an office, the office of king’s friend (1 Chronicles 27:33; 1 Kings 4:5 uses a slightly different form, re’eh ). This is a close advisor and counselor. For Solomon the king to designate the beloved as his “friend” is to say that she fulfills the office of his chief counselor, his queen.

The word is also related to the word for “pasture” and “shepherd.” Just a few verses earlier, in 1:7, the verb “you feed” or “you pasture” is ra’ah , which has the same consonants as the word for “king’s friend.” The word for “shepherds” in 1:8 is ro’iym , again built from the same root. When the Lover calls his beloved “darling” or “friend,” the Hebrew also sounds like “My shepherdess.” (This is the same root used in Genesis 29:9, the only place where the NASB translates a word as “shepherdness,” describing Rachel.) The Lover is a shepherd, the bride is the shepherdess. The Lover is a shepherd, and the Bride is the pasture where he grazes. Perhaps she is also implicitly the one being pastured, the one being led to green pastures and beside still waters.

One final, speculative dimension to the particular form used in Song of Songs 1:9. The form used throughout the Song has a first person suffix attached, which makes the full form ra’yatiy . Without the suffix, the word is ra’yah , which ends with the particle “ yah .” Ra’yah could be rendered as “friend of Yah.” If the Shepherd-Lover is Yahweh, the Beloved is ra-yah , friend of Yahweh, Israel, his bride.