What Does Song of Solomon 5:14 Mean?
His hands are rings of gold, filled with beryl; his belly is bright ivory, covered with sapphires.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.THE KEY
The beloved’s gold forms are filled with beryl, making the body and its adornment one image of precious fullness.
THE MEANING
The beloved’s body is seen in lavish detail: his hands hold gold forms full of beryl, and his belly shines as ivory beneath sapphires. The gaze lingers over different parts of him and recognizes their beauty.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belly is not outside beauty’s notice; it receives the same precious attention as the hands.
THE ROOT
מְמֻלָּאִים
memullaʾim
GROWS FROM
מלא
maleʾ
Fill; be full.
The wording pictures the gold forms as filled with beryl. The same root describes stones filling settings in the ephod and breastplate, echoing adornment completed by the stones it holds.
ALSO GROWS
maleʾ: To be full; to become full.
מָלֵא
The beryl fills the gold forms, making fullness part of the image rather than merely placing one precious material beside another.
milluʾim: Fillings; setting stones, as in “stones to be set” in Exodus 25:7.
מִלּוּאִים
This word describes stones placed in the ephod and breastplate, a close scriptural parallel to the verse’s gold filled with a precious stone.
גְּלִילֵי
gelilei
GROWS FROM
גלל
galal
Roll; roll away.
“rings of gold” in this verse is gelilei. The word translated “gold rings” describes round or cylindrical forms and belongs to the root of rolling. A scroll comes from the same root family, so the beloved’s ornament carries the same shaping image as something rolled.
ALSO GROWS
galal: To roll; to roll away.
גָּלַל
This verb reveals the rolling image beneath the round forms of gold in the verse.
megillah: Scroll; a rolled document.
מְגִלָּה
A scroll shares the rolling root, showing how the same Hebrew family can name both a rounded form and an object made by rolling.
THE PATTERN
An attentive gaze makes the body visible as precious through specific detail.
His legs are pillars of marble, founded on sockets of fine gold; his look is like Lebanon, chosen as the cedars.I open my hands to you, for I am made in awe and wonder. Your works are wonderful, and my living soul perceives it well.And those parts of the body that we think to be lighter, these we clothe with more abundant weight, and our unshaped parts have more abundant shapeliness.THE THREAD
Onyx stones, and stones of filling for the ephod, and for the breastplate.The word translated “set with” comes from מלא (maleʾ, “fill; be full”); Exodus uses a form of the same root for stones set into the ephod and breastplate. The shared language links the beloved’s jeweled body with the image of a garment made complete by the stones it holds.
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