Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
A garden enclosed - a spring shut up, a fountain sealed - Different expressions to point out the fidelity of the bride, or of the Jewish queen. See the outlines. She is unsullied, a chaste, pure virgin. None has ever entered into this garden; none has yet tasted of this spring; the seal of this fountain has never been broken. Among the Athenians, the interior part of the house, called the women' s apartment, was not only locked but sealed; so Aristophan., Thesmoph. ver. 422: -
.
And on this account, to the women' s apartment
They place seals as well as bolts.
And seal, as applicable to chaste conduct, is a phrase well known to the Greeks. Aeschylus, in the Agamemnon, praises a woman, , who had not violated her seal of conjugal faith. But Nonnus, lib. ii., uses the form of speech exactly as Solomon does with reference to a pure virgin; he says, ̔ ; "She had preserved the seal of her virginity untouched." All this is plain; but how many will make metaphors out of metaphors!
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