His body is like polished ivory, covered with sapphires.
15 His legs are like pillars of marble
Based upon pedestals of gold.
His aspect is like that of Lebanon.
([GR: chry/sos], gold, and [GR: li/thos], a stone), is of a yellow or gold colour, and pellucid. Being of a glass lustre, the chrysolite is beautifully chosen to represent the nails. The words [HE: m^emul.o'iym/ b.at.ar^eS/iyS/] refer to [HE: yodoyv]. The expression [HE: mE`iym/], prop. the internal parts of the human frame (v. 4), is here used for the external = the body; so Dan. ii. 32. [HE: `eS/et] is taken by most modern commentators to denote something fabricated, or wrought; an artificial work; thus deducing this sense from the secondary meaning of [HE: `oS/at], which the Syriac ([SY:`abd=a'], work,) seems to favour; but this is incompatible with the description here given of the beloved. The Shulamite, throughout the whole of this delineation, depicts the splendour and colour of the body as they dazzle the eye, but makes no reference to the wondrous construction of the frame, which could have been discerned only by the exercise of the intellect. It is therefore better, with Ibn Ezra, Kimchi, Rashi, Rashbam, Luther, Auth. Version, Mendelssohn, Kleuker, Williams, Good, Hengstenberg, &c. to take [HE: `eS/et], from [HE: `oS/at], in its primary meaning, to shine, to be bright, in the sense of brightness, polish; comp. Jer. v. 28.
Covered with sapphires. These words refer to his body, and describe the purple tunic covering the snowy white skin. Good, Meier, &c. take it to describe the blue veins which were seen through his clear snowy skin, like a sapphire stone through a thin transparent plate of ivory. But this is against the meaning of [HE: m^e`ul.epet], which signifies covered, and not inlaid; the external covering, and not the internal seen through the outer cover. Commentators are not agreed whether that which we call the genuine sapphire, a transparent stone of a beautiful sky-blue colour, in hardness and value next to the diamond, is meant by [HE: sap.iyr]; or the sapphire of the ancients, which, according to Pliny, (Hist. Nat. xxxvii. 39; Theophrast. De Lapid. 231,) is a stone of a pure blue colour, and has frequently pebble spots of a golden yellow hue, which were formerly thought to be really gold, and is evidently our lapis lazuli, lazure-stone. As the latter does neither suit Job xxviii. 6, for the lazure-stone is not very precious; nor Exod. xxviii. 18, since it is too soft to bear engraving, it is more probable that the real sapphire is meant by [HE: sap.iyr] in the Scriptures. This stone is often found in collections of ancient gems; see Rosenmüller, Bib. Bot. and Miner.; Kitto, Cyclop. Bib. Lit. s. v. The Syriac, which translates [HE: m^e`ul.epet sapiyrym/] by [SY: `al mapH=a' spIy'=a'], upon the sapphire breathing, must have had another reading.
15. His legs are like pillars of marble, &c. His white legs, standing upon beautiful feet, resemble the purest marble columns based upon golden pedestals. [HE: S/vOq], as Kimchi well explains it, [HE: mh Shv' `l hrgl Hlyl vygy` `d hbrkym/], is that part of the limb from the knee to the foot. That [HE: 'ad^enEy poz] refers to his feet (Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Kleuker, Meier, Hitzig, &c.), and not to his sandals (Good, Williams, &c.), is evident from ver. 11 and 14, where the head and the hands, the visible parts of the body, are described as golden; and it is but natural that the feet, the only remaining exposed parts, should also be described as golden.
His aspect is like that of Lebanon. Having depicted the single parts of his body, the Shulamite now joins them together, and presents them in one whole, the appearance of which impresses the mind with a sense of beauty and majesty, like that of Lebanon. "That goodly mountain,
