Song Of Solomon / Question
He describes her as “a garden locked” and “a spring locked, a fountain sealed,” using a protected-garden image (Song of Solomon 4:12). The following lines continue with a list of fruits and spices connected to that garden picture (Song of Solomon 4:13-14).
In Song of Songs 4:12–15, the man praises the woman through a garden-and-water picture. He calls her a locked garden and a sealed spring, stressing protected access and treasured privacy. He then describes what grows there: pomegranates and many costly fragrances and spices. This passage sits inside a longer praise song in which the man celebrates the woman’s beauty and desirability with layered metaphors (4:1–15).
These verses are love poetry. The man speaks to the woman as a “locked garden,” a “locked spring,” and a “sealed fountain,” then fills out the picture with fruit and rare aromas, and finally calls her “a well of living waters” with streams that flow.
A common mistake is to turn the wording into a slogan. The better reading keeps the phrase tied to the passage, the speaker, and the problem the book is addressing.
Start with Song of Solomon 4:12, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
12A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; A locked up spring, A sealed fountain.