Treasury of Scripture
behold
Ezekiel 1:15-17 Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel on the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces...
as the
Daniel 10:6 His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire...
Revelation 21:20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth...
a beryl. Tarshish is generally rendered by the LXX and the Vulgate the chrysolite, so called by the ancients (from [] gold and [] a stone) because of it fine gold yellow colour. It is now called by the moderns the topaz; is a very beautiful and valuable gem in its pure and perfect state, though very rarely found so; and the finer pieces of it are in hardness second only to the diamond. The Vulgate, however, in ch.
Ezekiel 1:16 The appearance of the wheels and their work was like to the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness...
, renders, quasi visio maris, `as the appearance of the seas,' i. e. azure; and Dr. Geddes (on
Exodus 28:10 Six of their names on one stone, and the other six names of the rest on the other stone, according to their birth.
) says, that, with Abarbanel, the believes the beryl to be intended. It is a pellucid gem, called by our lapidaries, aqua marian, of a sea or bluish green colour, found in the East Indies and about the gold mines of Peru. The genuine Beryl never receives any other mixture of colour; and in its perfect state approaches the hardness of garnet.