Vv. 15-17. The measures of the city are now taken, as in Ezek. xl. 3, 48, xlii. 16 f., to elucidate the vision (otherwise in xi. I, 2). It turns out to be an enor- mous quadrilateral cube, like Ezekiel’s ideal sanctuary, a cube being symbolical of perfection to a Jew, as a circle is to ourselves. Whether 1500 miles represent the total circumference or the length of each side, the hyperbole is obvious, but John is following the patriotic rabbinic traditions which asserted that Jerusalem would extend as far as Damascus in the latter days (Zech. ix. 1) if not to the high throne of God. In Sib. Or. v. 250 f. the heaven-born Jews who inhabit Jeru- salem are to run a wall as far as Joppa. Further measurements in Baba-Bathra {. 75, 2 (cf. Gfrorer, ii. 245 f.; Bacher,
454
z Poetical tf σὲ
form, (cf. Jos. Ant. XV. 9, 6) = “ fab- Tic” or “mat- erial’’,
a Ver. 11.
b Cf. on iv. 6, v. like diadn, a genuine form of the coun (Thumb, 18, 75).
c From Isa. liv. 11-12.
d iv. 3.
e Here only (Ν.Τ.),
f iv. 3, cf. fragm. in Epiph., Haer. xxxi. 9.
Ae
και η
ς
το. aL
διαυγής.
i Pale sea-green felspar, sometimes aquamarine in colour, lix. 17; jacinth or sapphire.
cf. Job xxviii. 1ο.
ὁ τρίτος “χαλκηδών: 6 τέταρτος Σσαρδόνυξ: 6 ἕκτος " σάρδιον" 6 ἕβδομος Χρυσόλιθος: ὁ ὄγδοος
g Red and white onyx (1 ΧΧ = obr),
18. καὶ ἡ ” ἐνδώμησις τοῦ τείχους αὐτῆς "ἴασπις :
πόλις χρυσίον καθαρὸν ὅμοιον ’ ὑάλῳ καθαρῷ. θεµέλιοι τοῦ τείχους τῆς πόλεως παντὶ λίθῳ τιµίῳ κεκοσμημένοι ' 6 θεμέλιος 6 πρῶτος ἆἴασπις " ὁ δεύτερος σάπφειρος *
ft
σµάραγδος: 20. 6 πέμπτος
᾿βήρυλλος: 6 ἔνατος * τοπάζιον: 6 δέκατος χρυσόπρασος: ὁ évdé- κατος ᾿ ὑάκινθος: 6 δωθέκατος, ™ ἀμέθυστος. 21. καὶ ot δώδεκα πυλῶνες δώδεκα μαργαρῖται : n> NT 4 ασ ~ , 2. 3 eR , ἀνὰ ” εἷς ἕκαστος τῶν πυλώνων ἦν ἐξ ἑνὸς µαργαρίτου : καὶ ἡ Οπλατεῖα τῆς πόλεως χρυσίον καθαρὸν, ὡς ὕαλος
h iv. 3. Greenish-yellow gem (periodot ?) m Violet or purple. n Late and
irregular idiom = καθ᾽ els (Blass, § 39, 2, § 45, 3); cf Win., § 26, 9, ava adverbial, like ἕως
(Deissm. 139). ο Xxii. 2.
Agada d. Tann. i. 194f., 392). Asin the case of the tabernacle in Jerusalem of the Hexateuch, so here: the symmetry and harmony of the divine life are naively represented by Oriental fantasy in terms of mathematics and architecture. A wall of about 72 yards high seems oddly un- symmetrical in view of the gigantic pro- portions of the city, though it might refer to the breadth (Simcox) or to the height of the city above the plain. But the whole description is built on multiples of twelve, a sacred number of completeness. The wall is a purely poetical detail, re- quired to fill out the picture of the ancient city; like the similar touches in 24, 26, xxli, 2, it has no allegorical significance whatever. Cf. Slav. En. Ixv. το: ‘‘and there shall be to them”? (i.e., to the just in eternity) ‘‘a great wall which cannot be broken down”’.—pérpov κ.τ.λ., an- other naive reminder (ο σας. ο, τοι xxii. 8, ϱ) that angels were not above men.
Vv. 18-21: the materials of the city. ἐνδώμησις, So an undated but pre-Chris- tian inscription, τ. ἐνδώμησιν τοῦ τεμένους (Dittenberger’s Sylloge inscript. Graec.? 55351), where the orthography is pro- nounced ‘‘ nova”? (see τεβ.).
While the city itself (or its streets, ver. 21) is supposed to be constructed of transparent gold like the house of Zeus πολύχρυσον (Hippfol. 69), the wall ap- pearing above the monoliths or founda- tion-stones is made entirely of jasper, which again is the special ornament assigned to the first toundation-stone (19, see on ver. 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 xiii. 3 the heavenly Zoroastrian palace of the sky also ‘shines in its body of ruby.”? The general sketch is suggested by Isa. liv. II, 12, and even more directly by Tobit ΧΙ. 16, 17 (‘‘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, vi. 113). The twelve gems correspond upon the whole to those set in gold (cf. Ezek. xxviii. 13) upon the high priest’s breastplate in P (Exod, xxviii. 17-20, Xxxix. 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. ver. 22) ; for the astro- logical basis and the relation of the two O.T. and the present lists, cf. Flinders Petrie in Hastings’ D. B. iv. 619-621; Myres in E. Bi. 4800 f.; St. Clair in Fourn. Theol. Studies, viii. 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,—odmderpos=lapis lazuli (sap-