A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
A word fitly spoken - Hebrew, spoken upon its two wheels; a word moving quickly on its wheels to the end aimed at the speaker commanding his words with a happy adaptation to the circumstances and exigency, as a charioteer commands his steeds. Gesenius takes it, 'A word spoken in (according to) its due time:' time's revolution being often compared to a revolving wheel. Maurer accounts for the dual, that the present time is the turning point between two times, the past and the future. The Hebrew for 'upon' х `al (H5921)] may also mean according to.
(Is like) apples of gold in pictures of silver - apples of gold enclosed in settings of silver; the silver outside being figured with open filagree-work through which the gold within shines the more strikingly from its partial concealment behind the silver. Gejer takes it, literal golden apples, or quinces, or citrons, attractive to the eye by the colour, to the nose by the odour, to the palate by the taste, served up in vessels of elaborately figured silver (literally, 'in figures of silver').