Lilies-of-the valley: briefly then: academic opinion (World
Bible Commentary, Anchor Yale Bible Commentary and others) favours the original
word referring to a Lotus not a Lily on various grounds, but highlighting that
Lotus is a type of Lily and that in olden days they wouldn't attempt to
distinguish between them.
Significance is mainly around the association of the
lotus with the mother-goddess as a symbol of life, fecundity, and perfection
which persists in the Christian representations of the Madonna with her lily
symbolising a sort of perfection diametrically opposite its primitive (sexual)
meaning ((Anchor Yale Bible Commentary).
