Jerusalem’s Jasper Walls

Jerusalem descends from heaven a jeweled bride, with the luminosity of a precious stone, a “crystal-clear jasper” (v. 11; hos litho iaspidi krustallizonti). She is also surrounded by a jasper wall (v. 18). How might the city be related to the wall?

The structure of 21:18-22 gives us a clue. Verses 18 and 21 both include the phrase “pure gold” (chrusion katharon), and both make reference to glass. These similar lines frame a chiastic section of the passage:

A. City was pure gold, like clear glass (ualo katharo), 18b

B. Precious stones adorning the foundations, 19-20

B’. Gates of pearl, 21a

A’. Streets were pure gold, like transparent glass (ualos diauges), 21b

The description of the city wall as jasper comes just before this section, in 18a, and if it is part of the chiastic arrangement, matches verse 22: “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple.” That suggests a connection between the wall and the temple. Jerusalem is a jasper city set within the jasper walls of temple of the Lord, the Almighty and the Lamb. As temple, the Lord is a wall around His Bride.

And that fulfills Zechariah’s vision of a Jerusalem without walls, surrounded by a wall of fire, a wall that is the God who is consuming fire (Zechariah 2:4-5). In Zechariah, it’s an image of growth and fruitfulness; the city is too big to be enclosed within walls. It’s also an image of vulnerable safety: Though lacking normal city defenses, the city is inviolable. Heavenly Jerusalem is the same, a sparkling city surrounded by the jasper glory of God, the God who is a Rock of fire.

This link is confirmed by what followed in Revelation 21. Zechariah envisions a Jerusalem surrounded by the fire of God with the glory of God in the midst (2:5). John’s description of heavenly Jerusalem moves from speaking of the jasper wall to describing (chiastically linked) temple to promising that the glory of God will illuminate the city, which will be lighted by the Lamb. Both give us a perichoretic vision of Jerusalem, a bride both enveloped by and enveloping her Lord.