Revelation 21:19

garnished The same word that is rendered "adorned" in Revelation 21:2. From the next sentence we are to understand that they are adorned by being constructedof these stones, not that stones are fastened on merelyfor ornament.

precious stones See Isaiah 54:11-12; where however there is less detail than here, and what there is is not quite the same: a warning against expecting too minute a symbolism in the details. It is true that contemporary superstition ascribed mystical meanings and magical virtues to the various stones, and it is possible that the revelation made to St John was given in terms of these beliefs, which he and his readers may have known of or even have held. But though not a prioriincredible, this is hardly likely: these superstitions had, it seems, much less hold on the popular mind in St John's day than some centuries later: and at all times they were too vague and too variable to give us a key to the interpretation. There may be a definite meaning in each of the stones named, but the general meaning of the whole is all that we can be sure of. As St Hildebert says,

Quis chalcedon, quis jacinthus,

Norunt illi qui sunt intus.

The first foundation The enumeration probably begins from one of the angles, and goes round the wall in order. It is useless to guess which Apostle's name was on which stone, but it may be presumed that St Peter's would be on the first. But in no two of the canonical lists of the Apostles are their names given in the same order; and, so far as there is any order among them, they are arranged in three groups of four, not, as is here required, in four groups of three.

jasper Like the superstructure of the wall, Revelation 21:18. But it can hardly be meant, that the Church is built more solidly on to St Peter than to any other of the Twelve.

sapphire The Greek and Hebrew words are (as with "jasper") the same as the English. Yet it is almost certain that the stone so called in St John's day was not our sapphire, but the far less precious lapis lazuli.

chalcedony Apparently not the stone now so called, but one closely resembling the emerald.