His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.
Rings set with ... beryl - Hebrew, Tarshish; so called from the city Tartessus. It answers to the ancient chrysolite, gold in colour, our topaz, one of the stones on the high priests breastplate, also in the foundation of New Jerusalem, (Revelation 21:1-27.) 'Are as' is plainly to be supplied. See in Song of Solomon 5:13 a similar ellipsis. Not as Moody Stuart, 'have gold rings.' The hands bent in are compared to beautiful rings, in which beryl is set, as the nails are in the fingers. Burrowes explains the rings as cylinders used as signets, such as are found in Nineveh, and which resemble fingers. A ring is the token of sonship. A slave was not allowed to wear a gold ring. He imparts His sonship and freedom to us (Galatians 4:7); also of authority (Genesis 41:42). He seals us in the name of God with His signet (Revelation 7:2-4; cf. below, Song of Solomon 8:6, where she desires to be herself a signet-ring on His arms); so "graven on the palms," etc. - i:e., on the signet-ring in His hand (Isaiah 49:16; contrast Haggai 2:23 with Jeremiah 22:24).
Belly. Moody Stuart translate 'body.' The Hebrew х mee`aayw (H4578)] is elsewhere "bowels;" namely, His compassion (Psalms 22:14; Isaiah 63:15; Jeremiah 31:20).
Bright - literally, elaborately wought, so as to shine; so His "prepared" body (Hebrews 10:5; the "ivory palace" of the king (Psalms 45:8); spotless, pure, as the bride's "neck is as a tower of ivory" (Song of Solomon 7:4).
Sapphires - spangling in the girdle round Him (Daniel 10:5). "To the pure all things are pure." As in statuary to the artist, the partly undraped figure is suggestive only of beauty, free from indelicacy, so to the saint the personal excellencies of Jesus Christ, typified under the ideal of the noblest human form. However, since the bride and bridegroom are in public, the usual robes on the person, richly ornamented, are presupposed (Isaiah 11:5). Sapphires indicate His heavenly nature (so John 3:13, "is in heaven"), even in His humiliation, overlying or cast "over" His ivory human body (Exodus 24:10). Sky-blue in colour, they imply the height and depth of the love of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:18).