What Does Revelation 21:18 Mean?
And the wall is built of jasper, and the city is clean gold, like clear glass.
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 building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.THE KEY
The Greek uses the same word for the city’s “pure” gold and its “clear” glass: here, purity is preciousness made transparent.
THE MEANING
The city’s substance is precious, yet nothing about its purity makes it opaque: the gold is clear as glass. Wholeness appears as something of great worth that can also be seen through.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the assumption that what is valuable must be hidden or guarded from view.
THE ROOT
καθαρός
katharos
GROWS FROM
καθαρ-
kathar-
Clean, pure.
“clean” in this verse is katharos. The Greek repeats καθαρός: it describes the gold as “pure” and the glass as “clear.” The English uses two words, while the Greek lets one word hold both qualities together: the city’s purity is also its clarity.
ALSO GROWS
katharizō: To cleanse or purify.
καθαρίζω
This verb grows from the same word family, linking the city’s purity with the act of cleansing.
katharismos: Cleansing or purification.
καθαρισμός
This noun carries the same clean, pure quality as the gold and glass in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Purity is joined to visibility: what is clean can be seen without concealment.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steady breath within me.Flourishing are the clean in heart, for they perceive God.And he points out to me a clean river of the waters of life, bright as crystal, flowing out from the throne of God and of the Lamb.THE THREAD
And he points out to me a clean river of the waters of life, bright as crystal, flowing out from the throne of God and of the Lamb.The river is called “pure” with the same Greek word that describes the gold and glass here. The shared word carries the city’s clarity into the water of life.
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