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Chalcedony

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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Nave Topical Bible
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• χαλκηδών

(χαλκηδών)

Chalcedony is the precious stone with which the third foundation of the wall of the New Jerusalem is garnished (Revelation 21:19). The ancient meaning of the word is uncertain. In modern mineralogy the chalcedony is ‘a micro-crystalline form of quartz … a translucent substance of rather waxy lustre, presenting great variety of colours, though usually white, grey, yellow or brown’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica ¹¹ v. 803). But the chalcedony of Pliny (Historia Naturalis (Pliny) xxxvii. 72-73) was a green stone-an inferior kind of emerald-from the copper-mines of Chalcedon in Bithynia, whence its name. Flinders Petrie (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) iv. 621^a) suggests that it was ‘dioptase’ or silicate of copper.

James Strahan.