As the comment points out, $r_{ab}$ is the correlation between $a$ and $b$.
This equation:
$$\text{Beta:} \quad \beta_{x_1} = \frac{r_{yx_1} - r_{yx_2}r_{x_1x_2} }{1-r_{x_1x_2}^2}$$
can be achieved by solving the following equation:
$$
\beta_{x_1} + r_{x_1x_2}\beta_{x_2} = r_{x_1y} \\
r_{x_1x_2}\beta_{x_1} + \beta_{x_2} = r_{x_2y}
$$
where $x_1$ and $x_2$ are two predictors and $y$ is the dependent variable. Solving this above equation set by basic linear algebra will lead to the first equation.
Details can be found in Chapter 5 Multiple correlation and multiple regression of An introduction to psychometric theory with applications in R by William Revelle.