honey that runs out of the comb on its own: the freshest, purest grade, and a poet's word for the sweetest thing there is.
Anyone who has handled a honeycomb knows that the first honey out of it is the best. It seeps out clear under its own weight before anyone presses or heats the rest. That is what this word names. The everyday Hebrew word for honey (דְּבַשׁ) is broad enough to cover any thick sweetener, including the boiled fruit syrups made from dates and grapes, but this rarer word is narrow and precise: real bee honey, still dripping from the comb.
It turns up only five times, never in ordinary storytelling or law, and always in poetry. In every one of them it is the measure of something else:
- Psalm 19:10 says God's rulings are sweeter than honey, and sweeter still than what drips from the combs
- Proverbs 24:13 tells a son to eat honey because it is good, then says wisdom tastes the same way to the soul
- Proverbs 27:7 notes that a full stomach will walk right over even the finest honey
- Proverbs 5:3 describes the lips of a dangerous woman dripping with it
- Song of Songs 4:11 describes the lips of a bride dripping with it
When the word stands next to the ordinary word for honey, as it does in Psalm 19:10, Proverbs 24:13, and Song of Songs 4:11, it is the stronger second term: honey, and better than honey. Psalm 19:10 doubles the effect by pairing it with the word for the combs themselves (צוּף), so the line reads something like "the drippings of the combs," about as strong a way of saying "the very best honey" as Hebrew has.
That is what makes the two "dripping lips" verses so sharp. The warning in Proverbs 5:3 and the love song of Song of Songs 4:11 use nearly the same words, and readers have long taken them as a deliberate pair: the same irresistible sweetness, once a trap that ends in death, once the delight of a husband and wife. The word itself never passes judgment. It only tells you how good something tastes.