What Does Revelation 21:19 Mean?

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.

Revelation 21:19 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;

THE KEY

Here, the foundations themselves are adorned: beauty belongs to what bears the wall, not only to what is seen above it.

THE MEANING

You are shown a city whose wall foundations are set with precious stones. What bears its boundary is also made visible as valuable and beautiful, with each foundation named by its own stone.

THE ROOT

κεκοσμημένοι

kekosmēmenoi

GROWS FROM

κοσμ-

kosm-

To arrange or put in order; to adorn.

“arranged” in this verse is kekosmēmenoi. The Greek verb carries both the sense of arranging and of adorning. The foundations are not merely decorated; they are shown as part of an ordered beauty that belongs to the city’s structure.

ALSO GROWS

kosmos: Order, arrangement; also the world.

κόσμος

The related word links adornment with an ordered whole: the city’s precious foundations belong to its larger design.

kosmios: Orderly, well-arranged, decorous.

κόσμιος

This related form keeps the sense of beauty shaped by order, rather than beauty added at random.

τιμίῳ

timiō

GROWS FROM

τιμ-

tim-

Value, worth, honor.

“precious” in this verse is timiō. The stones are described with a word that carries worth and honor as well as preciousness. The foundation’s material is not anonymous: its value is part of what the verse lets you see.

ALSO GROWS

timē: Value, honor, price.

τιμή

This noun makes the link between a stone’s preciousness and the worth assigned to it explicit.

timaō: To honor or value.

τιμάω

The related verb shows the same root moving from worth itself to the act of recognizing worth.

THE PATTERN

God’s dwelling is pictured as a built work whose stones and materials disclose the value of what is being made.

O bowed one, storm-tossed, not comforted, behold, I will lay down your stones in kohl, and lay your foundations in sapphires.

Isaiah 54:11 · SDVThe foundations and stones of the city are described through precious material, as in Revelation’s jeweled foundations.

Now if anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, stubble;

1 Corinthians 3:12 · SDVThe materials built on a foundation disclose the worth and character of the structure.

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.

1 Peter 2:5 · SDVThe image of a dwelling built from stones continues, with the stones themselves belonging to the structure.

THE THREAD

And I, John, see the set-apart city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, made ready as a bride arranged for her husband.

Revelation 21:2 · SDV

The word translated “adorned” in this verse comes from the same Greek verb ⁨κοσμέω⁩ (kosmeō), meaning to arrange or adorn, as “garnished” in Revelation 21:19. The city is adorned as a whole, and its foundations share in that same ordered beauty.

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