Image: Ethiopian Woman by JW Kelly

The Song of Songs is a beautiful, poetic and erotic dialog between two lovers. Verse 1:5 is famous. Here are several English translations:

King James Bible

I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

Christian Standard Bible

Daughters of Jerusalem,
I am dark like the tents of Kedar,
yet lovely like the curtains of Solomon.

English Standard Version

I am very dark, but lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
like the curtains of Solomon.

New Living Translation

I am dark but beautiful,
O women of Jerusalem—
dark as the tents of Kedar,
dark as the curtains of Solomon’s tents.

Jewish Publication Society

I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

The word in bold face in all these is a translation of the word ‘ve-‘ in biblical Hebrew. What’s special about this word is that its meaning is very context-dependent. In some contexts it means ‘but,’ just as we see it in these translations. In other contexts it means ‘and.’

In this case, context doesn’t give us any clues. It could mean ‘but,’ as the translators above all seemed to think, or it could mean ‘and.’ Consider the different sense of the verse if we translate it as ‘and:’

I am black and comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem . . . .

The ancient Israelites were aware of skin color, but dark skin had no negative connotations. What really mattered in the ancient world was how wealthy your nation was, and whether it was good at war. There was no concept of race.

So why did all of these translators use the word ‘but?’ It implies that there’s something surprising about a dark-skinned woman being beautiful. For the ancient Israelites, though, there was nothing surprising about this. The woman (a young woman, surely) was black, and she was beautiful.

It’s hard to escape the thought that these translators had biases about skin color that shaped their translation choices.

It makes me wonder. If the King James Version had chosen to use ‘and’ where they chose to use ‘but,’ would that first English slave ship have shown up in Jamestown in 1619? Would slavery still have spread in the United States? Would we have had the Civil War? If the other translators had chosen differently, would we be seeing the racial hatreds that we see today?

We must never forget the power of mighty little words.