CRYSTAL (kris' tal), (Heb. n7, keh'rakh, kerach, and gaw'beesh, both rendered in the Sept. by KptlaraXXos, kroos'tal-los, ice, which also occurs in Rev. xxi:11).
There seems to lie no doubt that crystal is in tenrled by the Greek word in Rev. xxi :tr, as in deed the phrase of comparison 'clear as crystal' would seem naturally to suggest. It is not very certain, nor very likely, that the Hebrew word gabisli (Job xxviii :17). means crystal ; but as the other word so rendered (kerach) denotes ice, to which crystal bears so much external resemblance; and as in Ezek. i :22 it occurs with an application so similar to the scpt'laraXXos, crystal, of Rev. xxi: it, we may with much confidence take this to be its meaning, This is the more apparent when we recollect that crystal was anciently held to be only pure water, congealed by great length of time into ice harder than the common (Diod. Sic. ii :52; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvii :2), and hence the Greek
word for it, in its more proper signification, also signifies ice. From this it necessarily followed that crystal could only be produced in the regions of perpetual ice; and this was accordingly the an cient belief ; but we now know that it is found in the warmest regions. Theophrastus (54) reckons crystal among the pellucid stones used for en graved seals. In common parlance we apply the term crystal (as the ancients apparently did) to a glass-like transparent stone, commonly of a hexag onal form, which, from being found in rocks, is called by mineralogists rock-crystal. It is a stone of the flint family, the most refined kind of quartz.
CUB (ktib), (A. V. kub). Name of a people in alliance with Egypt in the time of Nebuchad nezzar (B. C. 61o). Probably Nub. The Seventy seem to read Lub, i. e., Libya.