METALS MENTIONED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



265 



Pkecious Stones Symbolically. 



B.C. 1491. Moses was commanded to go with Aaron, Nadab 

 and Abihn and seventy of the elders of Israel to worship afar 

 off at the foot of Mount Sinai, while only Moses was suffered 

 to go near the Lord : then they went as far as they were 

 permitted, "and they saw the God of Israel and there was 

 under his feet as a paved work of sapphire stone (lapis lazuli) and 

 as it were the body of heaven in his clearness." (Ex. xxiv, 10.) 



In describing the incomparable value of wisdom Job 

 exclaimed, " It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, and 

 the precious onyx, or the sapphire (lapis lazuli) ; the gold and 

 the crystal (zekhuketh) crystal-like glass ? (P.) cannot equal it and 

 the exchange of it shall not be lor jewels of fine gold. Xo 

 mention shall be made of coral or pearls, for the price of 

 wisdom is above rubies (penenem) : this is not a stone at all, 

 but is considered by Gesenius, K. and other authorities to be red 

 coral. 



B.C. circum 712. Prophesying the extension of Christ's 

 Church, Isaiah says, " Oh thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and 

 not comforted, behold 1 will lay thy stones with fair colours, 

 and thy foundations with sapphires (lapis lazuli) and I will 

 make thy windows of agates (kudkud, conjectured to be zircon, 

 garnet or tourmaline, K.), and thy gates of carbuncles (ekdokh, 

 an uncertain fiery gem) and all thy borders of pleasant stones." 

 (Is. liv, 11, 12.) 



B.C. circum 595. The prophecy of Ezekiel opens with a 

 magnificent heavenly vision of four living creatures which 

 came out of a great cloud and a fire, " and out of the midst 

 thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire." 

 And as he beheld them behold vine wheel upon the earth by the 

 living creatures. The appearance of the wheels and their work 

 was like unto the colour of a beryl ; and the likeness of the 

 firmament upon the heads of the living creatures was as the 

 colour of the terrible crystal stretched forth over their heads 

 above. And above the firmament that was over their heads 

 was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire 

 stone (lapis lazuli). And I saw as the colour of amber, as the 

 appearance of fire round about within it" (Ezek. i, 4, 16, 26). 

 The word zekhukheth employed here in both cases does not 

 signify amber, but a precious alloy of copper and gold or of gold 

 and silver, so in Ezek. viii, 2. 



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