The stones of it [are] the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold.
Ver. 6. The stones of it are the place of sapphires] Which are excellent stones, and, therefore, here joined with gold, Quod punctis aureis collucant, because they shine with golden sparklings. Exodus 24:10, the Sanhedrim "saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone," &c. To show, saith one, that God had now changed their condition, their bricks made in their bondage to sapphire. So, Isaiah 54:11, God graciously promiseth unto his afflicted Church, that had been tossed with tempests, and not comforted, to lay her stones with fair colours and her foundation with sapphires; to make her windows of agates, and her gates of carbuncles, and all her borders of pleasant stones; to render her all glorious within, by the curious enamel and embroidery of holy graces, and to beautify also and bespangle her with outward plenty and prosperity, that she might glitter in the eyes of God and men.
And it hath dust of gold] Or, ore of gold; better than that which our Frobisher, in his voyage to discover the strait, brought back with him; from which, when there could be drawn neither gold nor silver, nor any other metal, we have seen it cast forth to repair the highways, saith Mr Cambden.