I am My Beloved’s, and My Beloved is Male

Some jewellery worn by Christians have a Hebrew inscription:

אני לדודי ודודי לי

Because it is such a common Hebrew inscription on jewellery, some people might recognize that it comes from the Hebrew text of Song of Songs 6:3:

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.

Wow, an expression of love from the Bible—in the original Hebrew! How beautiful; How romantic!

In context, this saying in Song of Songs 6:3 was spoken by a woman about a man. Nonetheless, most popular English translations of this saying are not gender specific, since the English word “beloved” could refer to either a male or a female. However, this is not the case with the original Hebrew text!

The Gender of Hebrew Nouns

In Hebrew, each noun has a grammatical gender. A Hebrew noun is either masculine or feminine. Some Hebrew nouns have masculine and feminine versions. For example, meleḵ (מֶ֫לֶךְ) is a masculine noun meaning “king”, and its equivalent feminine noun is malkāh (מַלְכָּה), meaning “queen”. In the case of such nouns, the appropriate gender would always be used. Thus, meleḵ always denotes a male “king”, and malkāh always denotes a female “queen”—and never the other way around.

In Song of Songs 6:3, the Hebrew word for “beloved”, dōwḏ (דּוֹד), is a masculine noun. Thus, it refers to a “beloved” who is specifically male. A native speaker of Classical (Biblical) Hebrew would understand the Hebrew text to mean,

I am my (male) beloved’s, and my (male) beloved is mine.

Because of the rules of Hebrew grammar, the “beloved” in the Hebrew text cannot be female. Therefore, it is technically not appropriate for a man to use this Hebrew inscription if the “beloved” is intended to refer to his wife!

Solution #1

So then, what changes should be made to the Hebrew text of the inscription so that it becomes appropriate for a female “beloved”? Essentially, we would need to use a feminine noun which means “beloved”.

The feminine equivalent of dōwḏ is dōwḏāh (דּוֹדָה). In Song of Songs 6:3, the word for “my (male) beloved” is dōwḏiy (דּוֹדִי). The feminine equivalent, “my (female) beloved”, would be dōwḏāṯiy (דּוֹדָתִי).

Thus, one correct way to write, “I am my (female) beloved’s, and my (female) beloved is mine,” is,

אני לדודתי ודודתי לי

Solution #2

However, the feminine noun dōwḏāh is not actually used in the Song of Songs. Instead, throughout the Song, the more common word for the female “beloved” is raʿyāh (רַעְיָה). If we used this noun, then the word for “my (female) beloved” is raʿyāṯiy (רַעְיָתִי).

In this case, the correct way to write, “I am my (female) beloved’s, and my (female) beloved is mine,” is,

אני לרעיתי ורעיתי לי

Solution #3

The previous two solutions require changing the Hebrew text of the saying in order to make it appropriate for a female “beloved”. However, if we wanted to retain the exact wording of the Hebrew text, then there is one more solution: a change of perspective. Perhaps the “beloved” in the Hebrew text of the inscription does not refer to one’s beloved, but to the ultimate “beloved”—Jesus Christ!

Yet, we should be careful not to over-personalize Jesus’ belovedness. In the Bible, God is described figuratively as the husband to his people—not individual believers.