Emanuel Swedenborg Emanuel Swedenborg holds a stone to the light at his desk

Why Jerusalem’s foundations shine

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), a Swedish natural philosopher and theologian, noticed a striking detail while interpreting the book of Exodus. Beneath the feet of God there appears something like a pavement of sapphire. To read that image he turns to another book of the Bible. The Revelation of John describes a city whose walls rest on a succession of different precious stones.

Jewels at the foot of the wall

The precious stones which are the foundations denote truths Divine shining through in the ultimate of order.

– Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, 1938, p. 318.[1]

Looking at a city from a distance, one would usually see the towers and the tops of the walls first. John directs attention down towards the foundations. Swedenborg copies out the whole sequence of their names. Jasper, sapphire and chalcedony come first, and amethyst closes the list. Each foundation has a place of its own. But why should the stones entrusted with the weight of a wall be distinguished above all by their capacity to shine?

The meaning of the outermost level

Swedenborg supplies a clue in his next paragraph. The outermost level here is the literal wording of Scripture. A truth has to reach as far as those actual words if a reader is to encounter it. Hence the precision of the image of shining through. The colour, lustre and position of the sapphire all deserve attention, because details of this kind are precisely where his reading begins. To Swedenborg, the city coming down from heaven signifies a new church. Its foundations suggest what such a community would need in order to stand. There must be words that people can read and through which something more than their sound can reach them.