Bible dictionaries

Sapphire

What Bible dictionaries say about “Sapphire”, one article after the other.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Sapphire - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

Associated with diamonds (Ex. 28:18) and emeralds (Ezek. 28:13); one of the stones in the high priest's breastplate. It is a precious stone of a sky-blue colour, probably the lapis lazuli, brought from Babylon. The throne of God is described as of the colour of a sapphire (Ex. 24:10; comp. Ezek. 1:26).

Sapphire - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

SAP'PHIRE, n. [L. sapphirus; Gr. to scrape, to shine, to be fair, open, beautiful.]

A species of silicious gems or minerals, of several varieties. In hardness it is inferior to the diamond only. Its colors are blue, red, violet, yellow, green, white, or limpid, and one variety is chatoyant, and another asteriated or radiated.

Sapphire is a subspecies of rhomboidal corundum.

The oriental ruby and topaz are sapphires.

Sapphire is employed in jewelry and the arts.

Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

The article in Easton + Webster 1828

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)

saf'-ir.

See STONES, PRECIOUS.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2

The article in ISBE 1915

Smith’s Bible Dictionary

(Heb. sappir), a precious stone, apparently of a bright-blue color, set: (Exodus 24:10) the second stone in the second row of the high priests breastplate, (Exodus 28:18) extremely precious, (Job 28:16) it was one of the precious stones that ornamented the king of Tyre. (Ezekiel 28:13) The sapphire of the ancients was not our gem of that name, viz. the azure or indigo-blue, crystalline variety of corundum, but our lapis lazuli (ultra-marine).

William Smith; revised by F. N. Peloubet and M. A. Peloubet; CrossWire SWORD module Smith 1.3

The article in Smith