(χρυσόπρασος, from χρυσός, ‘gold,’ and πράσον, ‘a leek’)
This stone is the tenth foundation of the wall of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:20). The name is now applied to an apple-green variety of chalcedony or hornstone, prized in jewellery and sometimes used for mural decorations. But this chalcedony was probably unknown to the ancients, and the χρυσόπρασος of the Greeks was ‘not improbably our chrysoberyl’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica 11 vi. 321). The word is not found in either of the Septuagint lists of precious stones (Exodus 28:17-20, Ezekiel 28:13) with which the writer of Rev. was familiar.
James Strahan.