The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Echo
Later text
“O afflicted city, lashed by storms, without solace, surely I will set your stones in antimony and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.
Earlier text
And mount on it a setting of gemstones, four rows of stones: In the first row there shall be a ruby, a topaz, and an emerald; in the second row a turquoise, a sapphire, and a diamond; in the third row a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst; and in the fourth row a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. Mount these stones in gold filigree settings.
Isaiah 54:11-12 promises that restored Jerusalem will have foundations of sapphires (סַפִּירִים, sappirim), battlements of rubies, gates of crystal, and walls of precious stones. This gemstone imagery echoes the high priest's breastplate in Exodus 28:17-20, which was set with twelve precious stones including sapphire (סַפִּיר, sappir). The breastplate bore the names of Israel's twelve tribes "as a continual reminder before the LORD" (Ex 28:29). By constructing the eschatological city from the same gemstones that adorned the priestly breastplate, Isaiah portrays the restored Jerusalem as a city-sized embodiment of priestly holiness — the entire city becomes what the high priest's breastplate symbolized: God's people borne perpetually before His presence.