A precious stone; one of those which were in the breastplate of the high-priest (), and the origin of which is referred to Cush (). It has been identified with the gem to which the moderns have applied that name. This is a precious stone, having a strong glass luster. Its prevailing color is wine-yellow of every degree of shade. The dark shade of this color passes over into carnation red, and sometimes, although rarely, into lilac; the pale shade of the wine-yellow passes into grayish; and from yellowish-white into greenish-white and pale green, tincal and celadon-green. It may thus be difficult to determine whether the stone in question was the yellow topaz; but that it was a topaz there is little reason to doubt.
It is clear that the stone was highly prized by the Hebrews. Job declares that wisdom was more precious than the topaz of Cush (); and as the name Cush includes Southern Arabia and the Arabian Gulf, the intimation coincides with the statement of Pliny and others, that the topazes known to them came from the Topaz Island in the Red Sea, whence they was probably brought by the Phoenicians. In , the topaz is named among the precious stones with which the King of Tyre was decked.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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