18 And the building of the wall
of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
The wall is jasper. In antiquity
jasper was usually considered to be green and likened to an emerald while today
it includes a stone of red, yellow, and brown as well. Other mentions of jasper
in Revelation are;
Revelation 4:3 And he that sat
was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow
round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
Revelation 21:11 Having the
glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a
jasper stone, clear as crystal;
Revelation 21:19 And the
foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious
stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a
chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;
Pure and clear are synonyms in
this verse giving us the meaning of both. See again that this is done later.
Revelation 22:1 And he shewed me
a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb.
The city is pure gold, without
imperfection. Here are other references to pure gold.
2Chronicles 3:4 And the porch
that was in the front of the house, the length of it was according to the
breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was an hundred and twenty:
and he overlaid it within with pure gold.
2Chronicles 9:17 Moreover the
king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold.
A glass that you can see through
is also without imperfections.
19 And the foundations of the wall of the city
were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was
jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;
20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth,
sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the
tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.
Precious stones like these cover
the priest’s breastplate of judgment in
Exodus 28 and in Satan/Lucifer’s clothing in Ezekiel 28.
Exodus 28:17 And thou shalt set
in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a
sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.
Eze kiel 28:13 Thou hast been in
Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius,
topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the
emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy
pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
Be careful, if studying what these
individual stones might represent in reading back modern definitions of them
into the Bible, which would have defined them by ancient definitions as I
explained regarding jasper. Think of them as precious stones like rubies and
emeralds and remember that quibbling over definitions today and reading them
back into the Bible like reading Linnaeus’ taxonomic classifications of
creatures back into the Bible, which are modern definitions, will lead to a
dead end. The great fish or whale, because of its large size, was a
specially prepared creature and in the Bible whale does not refer to a marine mammal of the order, Cetacea, but
to a large sea creature. Read Jonah
1:17; Matthew 12:40; and Genesis 1:21. Keep that in mind when you try to read
back modern definitions into the Bible. God couldn’t care less about your
labeling and definitions created for your own benefit.
This also brings to mind some of
the problems with modern science. Such designations and classifications are
merely social constructions designed to place things in categories in our own
minds and do not have a necessary reality in the physical universe. In the same
regard philosophers of science have noted that for some experimental scientists
who deal in real, tangible evidence that some things that cannot be seen with
the naked eye like photons and electrons might not even exist but are,
“fictions, logical constructions, or parts of an intellectual instrument for
reasoning about the world.”(20)
My point is when you are reading
the words mammal or reptile, do not read them back into the Bible, written
before they came into use for science. Also, do not read the modern definitions
of a precious stone and presume that the Bible must conform to what we have
decided to use as a label or classification after the Bible was penned and
translated.
(20) Ian Hacking, Representing and Intervening: Introductory
Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Sciences (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1983), 27.
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