Song of Solomon 6:8 Explained in Context

Selected verse

Verse 8. There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

This verse counts sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens beyond number.

Read It With

Song of Solomon 6:4-10

Read Song of Solomon 6:8 with 6:4-10. This verse counts sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens beyond number. The complete unit establishes this movement: The lover repeats and intensifies praise, saying the woman's gaze overwhelms him and her uniqueness outshines a royal multitude, while daughters, queens, and concubines join the blessing.

Why This Verse Appears Here

Repeated images create editorial cohesion, while the new city, army, royal-harem, mother, dawn, moon, and sun images enlarge the praise beyond private beauty. Within that movement, this verse counts sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens beyond number.

Follow the Context

The woman is compared to Tirzah, Jerusalem, and bannered awe.
Her eyes overcome the speaker and earlier hair, teeth, and temple images return.
Sixty queens, eighty concubines, and innumerable maidens form a contrast.
The beloved is called one, unique to her mother, blessed by daughters, and praised by royal women.
A final question compares her emergence to dawn, moon, sun, and banners.

Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation

“virgins without number”

In plain language: an uncounted royal or social multitude contrasted with one beloved

counts sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens beyond number. A royal multitude supplies contrast for the one beloved rather than a relationship model.

Why it matters: The wording carries interpretive or ethical risk requiring the complete unit and stated limits.

How certain? probable

What This Verse Is Not Saying

The list does not endorse harems, polygamy, concubinage, exploitation, or treating women as inventory.

What Remains True

A royal multitude supplies contrast for the one beloved rather than a relationship model.

How It Can Shape Life

Examine power and inequality instead of romanticizing elite access to many women.

Teach It Back

Explain Song of Solomon 6:8's contribution to Song of Solomon 6:4-10: counts sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens beyond number. Include what the surrounding lines add, the stated uncertainty, and what this verse does not authorize.

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Continue in Context

The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.

Read Song of Solomon 6:4-10 — One Beloved Amid Royal Multitudes

Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? probable

Where care is needed

Whether these are Solomon's women, a general royal world, or only rhetorical numbers remains open.

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.

Exact location: Song of Solomon 6:4-10, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus

Open source ↗

hebrew text and morphology

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Song of Songs

Open Scriptures

Open Scriptures, release 2.2

Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, speaker-gender signals, wordplay, poetic clauses, and translation questions.

Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Song.xml, 6:4-10

Open source ↗

translation and translator notes

NET Bible: The Song of Songs with translators' notes

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press, 2006

Supports: Verse-level textual, grammatical, literary, historical, and translation alternatives.

Exact location: NET Bible Song of Songs PDF, printed pp. 1250-1251, translation and notes on 6:4-10

Open source ↗

Open the complete thought-unit research record