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Bible Dictionaries
Pearl
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or gabish . Job 28:18. Literally, "ice"; "what is frozen", as in Ezekiel 13:11; Ezekiel 13:13; Ezekiel 38:22 with "stones." So translated "crystal." In Ezekiel 38:17, zekukit translated "glass" for "crystal." The orientals anciently valued the rock crystal for its beauty and pure luster. In the New Testament margaritoee mean "pearls" (Matthew 13:45-46; 1 Timothy 2:9; Revelation 17:4; Revelation 18:12; Revelation 18:16; Revelation 21:21). In Matthew 7:16, "neither cast your pearls before swine," the pearls resemble peas or acorns, their natural food; so the swine, finding them not so, turn against the giver and rend him. Saving counsels offered to the swinish sensualist only provoke his filthiness and profanity (Proverbs 23:9; Proverbs 9:8).
The godly love even the sharp rebuke which heals their souls (Proverbs 15:31; Psalms 141:5; Job 13:23; Isaiah 39:8, Hezekiah; the Virgin, John 2:4-5; Galatians 2:14; 2 Peter 3:16. Peter). He that is filthy must be filthy still. Pearls are accidental concretions within certain molluscs, especially the Αvicula margaritifera found in the Indian ocean and Persian gulf and Pacific. Some foreign substance, introduced naturally or artificially, as a sandgrain, an egg, a parasite, or minute shell, forms the nucleus round which the surface of the mantle deposits nacreous or calcareous matter in thin layers, which hardening forms a shelly coat on the inner side of the valves. A pearl is an abnormal shell, reversed, i.e. the lustrous nacreous coat is external.
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Pearl'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/p/pearl.html. 1949.
