Unlike her search in Song of Solomon 3:1–5 the distance in their relationship is not quickly resolved in her search for him now. But she is determined to overcome this obstacle to intimacy with her new husband and so she asks the young daughters of Jerusalem for help. She urges them that if they find her beloved to tell him that she is sick with love. The frustration and sense of desperate longing of Song of Solomon 2:5 that she experienced before their union in marriage, has returned.
As in Song of Solomon 2:5 she wants to be strengthened by his love. She speaks through the young women because she is not yet able to grapple with the emotional turmoil of her relationship with the man and needs the support of other women.1
The oath she urges upon them is an ironic footnote to the oath she required of them in Song of Solomon 2:7: there she encouraged them not to stir up love too soon, while in this case she herself is an object lesson of the perils and pains of love, even when it has been stirred up at the right time.2
8 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with love.