Revelation 21:18-21

The materials of the city. ἐνδώμησις, so an undated but pre-Christian inscription, τ. ἐνδώμησιν τοῦ τεμένους (Dittenberger's Sylloge inscript. Graec. 583), where the orthography is pronounced “nova” (see reff.).

While the city itself (or its streets, Revelation 21:21) is supposed to be constructed of transparent gold like the house of Zeus πολύχρυσον (Hippol. 69), the wall appearing above the monoliths or foundation-stones is made entirely of jasper, which again is the special ornament assigned to the first foundation-stone (Revelation 21:19, see on Revelation 21:11). The Babylonian zikkurats were picked out with coloured bricks; but the exterior of this second city is to be what only the interior of a Babylonian sanctuary had been brilliant as the sun flashing with precious stones and gold and silver. In Yasht Revelation 13:3 the heavenly Zoroastrian palace of the sky also “shines in its body of ruby.” The general sketch is suggested by Isaiah 54:11-12, and even more directly by Tob 13:16-3 (“For Jerusalem shall be builded with sapphire and emerald, thy walls with precious stones, the towers and battlements with pure gold; and the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with beryl and carbuncle and stones of Ophir”). The Egyptian mansion of Life is also composed of jasper, with four walls, facing the south, the north, the east, and the west (cf. Records of Past, 6:113). The twelve gems correspond upon the whole to those set in gold (cf. Ezekiel 28:13) upon the high priest's breastplate in 2 Peter (Exodus 28:17-20; Exodus 39:10-13), which the writer loosely reproduces from memory. What the old covenant confined to the high priest is now a privilege extended to the whole people of God (cf. Revelation 21:22); for the astrological basis and the relation of the two O.T. and the present lists, cf. Flinders Petrie in Hastings' D. B. 4:619 621; Myres in E. Bi. 4800 f.; St. Clair in Journ. Theol. Studies, 8:213 f.; and Jeremias, 68, 88 f. No occult or mystical significance attaches to these stones. The writer is simply trying to convey the impression of a radiant and superb structure. σάπφειρος = lapis lazuli (sapphirus et aureis punctis collucet. Caeruleae et sapphiri, raroque cum purpura, Pliny, H. N. 37:39), a blue stone prized in Egypt and in Assyria, where it was often “used to overlay the highest parts of buildings” (E. Bi. 2710). χαλκηδών = either a variety of dioptase or emerald gathered on a mountain in Chalcedon (Pliny), or more probably an agate (ḳarkedrâ Pesh. rendering of שׁבר = LXX ἀχάτης Exodus 28:19), i.e., a variegated stone, whose base is chalcedony. The modern chalcedony is merely a translucent (grey) quartz, with a milky tinge. χρυσόλιθος = a gem of some (sparkling?) golden hue (LXX = תּרשׁישׁ), perhaps some variety of our topaz or beryl, which ranges from emerald-green to pale blue and yellow. The modern chrysolite is merely a hard greenish mineral, of no particular value. χρυσόλιθος and χρυσόπρασος (a leek-coloured gem) are probably varieties of the ancient beryl, unless the latter is the green chalcedony, and the former the modern topaz. μαργαρῖται κ. τ. λ. (on their value in the ancient world, see Usener's study in Theol. Abhand. 203 213): the conception is simplified from an old Jewish fancy of R. Jochanan preserved in Baba-Bathra, f. 75, 1, “Deus adducet gemmas et margaritas, triginta cubitos longas totidemque latas, easque excauabit in altitudinem xx cubitorum, et latitudinem x cubitorum, collocabitque in portis Hierosolymorum”. ἡ πλατεῖα, generic = “the streets” (like ξύλον, Revelation 22:2), unless it has the sense of “forum” or “market-place” (as 2 Chronicles 32:6; Job 29:7 LXX). But the singular may allude to the fact that “the typical Eastern city had … one street which led from the void place at the entering in of the gate to the court of the king's palace” (Simcox). Philo (quis haer. § 44., leg. alleg. § 20.) had already made gold emblematic of the divine nature diffused through all the world, owing to the metal's fusible qualities.

[923]P Codex Porphyrianus (sæc. ix.), at St. Petersburg, collated by Tischendorf. Its text is deficient for chap. Revelation 2:13-16.