Proverbs 25:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

A word fitly spoken As to the matter, and season, and other circumstances of it; is like apples of gold in pictures of silver Which, it seems, were usual in those times, and were grateful to the eye for the beauty and variety both of the colours and figures, the golden apples appearing through the net-work of silver, or being engraven, or portrayed, upon tablets of silver. Some translate the clause, Golden apples in vessels of silver, and think that, by golden apples, citrons or oranges are meant, or some fruit of the like kind and colour, which, put into silver vessels, appear the more beautiful by the contrast of the whiteness of the silver with their golden colour. Bishop Lowth observes, that Solomon in this sentence gives us not only an apt description of the proverb or parable, but also an example of the thing described. He means, in these words, that weighty and hidden meanings are as much commended by a concise and well-turned speech, as apples, exquisite for their colour, appear more lovely and pleasing when they shine through the net-work of a silver basket exquisitely chased: see his twenty-fourth lecture.