Revelation 4:3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And he that sat was to look upon, &c.— Many interpreters have observed a mystical meaning in the colours and properties of the precious stones here mentioned. Thus, in the jasper, which Grotius supposes a diamond, he finds an emblem of the invincible power of God. Daubuz, who considers it only as a stone of a white and bright shining colour, looks upon it as a symbol of good-will and favour. Thus again, the Sardine stone, which is of a red colour, with some, signifies the active power of God; with others, it is a symbol of anger and displeasure in God, and therefore of destruction; to teach men, that if they obey his oracle, he will shew them the brightness of his countenance; but if they despise it, he will at last shew them the redness of it, or his fiery anger: and thus the beautiful green of the emerald is supposed to signify great good-will and favour. But the application of these mystical meanings seems, to say the least of it, extremely uncertain. We may observe, concerning the prophetical stile of scripture, what L'Abbe Fleury has justly remarked concerning the poetical: "We are not to imagine that each circumstance has a particular application; the whole figure generally tends to one point only, or directly means but one thing; the rest is added, not to make a part of the comparison, but to point, in a more lively manner, the thing whence the comparison is taken."We have sufficient reason, however, with the whole body of commentators, to consider the rainbow here as a representation of God's faithfulness to his covenant and promise; God himself having appointed it as a standing and perpetual token of his covenant with man. See Genesis 9:13-15.