pleasing because it suits: lovely to look at, or right and becoming for the person or the occasion
This word makes a judgment that something is as it should be. That judgment can fall on a face or on a person's behavior, and Hebrew uses the same word for both. In love poetry it means lovely; in worship and wisdom it means fitting.
The Song of Songs uses it only of beauty, and at Song of Songs 6:4 it stands right beside the ordinary Hebrew word for "beautiful" (יָפֶה), which settles the sense there. The Psalms use it the other way. Praise "is comely" for the upright: it is the response God's people owe, and the response that looks right coming from them.
Proverbs presses that second use into three pictures of things that do not match:
- Fine speech does not suit a fool.
- Luxury does not suit a fool.
- Honor on a fool is like snow in summer.
What ties the two uses together is congruity. A face is lovely when its features belong together, praise is fitting when it belongs to the one praised, and honor on a fool belongs nowhere. The ancient translators felt the pull of both ends and chose by context, reaching for the Greek word for what is beautiful (καλός) in the Song and the Greek word for what is proper (πρέπω) in the Psalms, while still handling the Hebrew as a single word.
Nuances
Whether the conjunction in Song of Songs 1:5 contrasts the woman's darkness with her beauty ("black but beautiful") or joins them ("black and beautiful").
- majorityThe waw is coordinating: the woman asserts that she is both dark and beautiful. The Septuagint's plain καί, the neutral to positive value of black elsewhere in Hebrew, and the following images of the tents of Kedar and the curtains of Solomon associate her darkness with desirability rather than with shame.; Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs (Anchor Bible 7C, 1977), 307-318; J. Cheryl Exum, Song of Songs (Old Testament Library, 2005), s.v. 1:5; Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (1985), s.v. 1:5; Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs (Continental Commentary, 1994), s.v. 1:5
- minorityThe waw is adversative: the woman concedes her sun darkened skin and asserts her beauty in spite of it, since verse 6 has her protest at being stared at and blame her brothers for sending her into the vineyards.; Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs (New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2001), s.v. 1:5; Jerome, Vulgate: nigra sum sed formosa
Whether the form at Jeremiah 6:2 is a variant spelling of the adjective "comely" or belongs to the separate root meaning pasture or meadow.
- majorityIt is the adjective in its shorter spelling, so daughter Zion is addressed as the comely and delicate one, matching the parallel adjective beside it.; BDB, s.v. נָאוֶה; William McKane, Jeremiah 1-25 (International Critical Commentary, 1986), s.v. 6:2
- minorityIt belongs to the root for pasture or meadow, giving something like "you are like the loveliest pasture, fair Zion," which prepares for the shepherds who pitch their tents around her in the next verse.; William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Hermeneia, 1986), s.v. 6:2; Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20 (Anchor Bible 21A, 1999), s.v. 6:2