What Does Exodus 28:18 Mean?
The second row will be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.THE KEY
The stone translated “diamond” bears a Hebrew name tied to striking, so the row’s beauty carries the force of impact.
THE MEANING
This verse sets three distinct stones in one ordered row. In the KJV’s “diamond,” the Hebrew name retains a root of striking, holding beauty and force together.
THE ROOT
יָהֲלֹם
yahalom
GROWS FROM
הלם
to strike, beat, or hammer
יָהֲלֹם (yahalom), rendered “diamond,” shares its consonants with הלם, the root for striking or hammering. The precise modern identity of this ancient stone name is uncertain, but its Hebrew form carries an echo of impact within the adornment.
ALSO GROWS
halam: to strike or hammer
הָלַם
This verb makes explicit the striking force carried by the stone’s name.
mahalumah: a blow or stroke
מַהֲלֻמָּה
This noun names the impact itself, extending the same root from the act of striking to its effect.
THE PATTERN
Distinct stones can remain distinct while forming one ordered whole.
The stones will be twelve, according to the names of the children of Israel, like the engravings of a seal, each with its own name according to the twelve tribes.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.And the foundations of the wall of the city are arranged with every precious stone. The first foundation is jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald.THE THREAD
She stretched out her hand to the peg, and her right hand to the hammer of the toilers. With the hammer she struck Sisera, she shattered his head, and passed through his crushed temples.The verb translated “smote” comes from הלם (halam), sharing the root consonants with יָהֲלֹם (yahalom), the stone name in this verse. That link lets the word rendered “diamond” retain an echo of striking inside the breastplate’s adornment.
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