And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone.

“The Church, setting forth the likeness of paradise, includes within her walls fruit-bearing trees, whereof that which does not bring forth good fruit is cut off and is cast into the fire. These trees she waters with four rivers, that is, with the four Gospels, wherewith, by a celestial inundation, she bestows the grace of saving baptism. Can any one water from the Church's fountains who is not within the Church? Can one impart those wholesome and saving draughts of paradise to any one if he is perverted, and of himself condemned, and banished outside the fountains of paradise, and has dried up and failed with the dryness of an eternal thirst?”

“Perhaps, however, those people who like to talk from their own wisdom do not concede again that these rivers are rivers or these waters really waters but propound some different interpretation to people ready to lend them their ears. Let us, however, I beg you, not be convinced by them but block our ears against them; let us instead place our credence in sacred Scripture and heed what is told us there.”

“The river Phison separates all the countries of India [lying along its course] from the country of the Huns. In scripture the Indian region is called Euilat (Havilah). For it is thus written in Genesis: Now the river goeth out from Eden to water Paradise. And from there it was parted and became four heads. The name of the first is Phison (Pishon); that is it which compasseth the whole land of Euilat, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; there is the carbuncle and the jasper stone; where the writer clearly calls the country Euilat. This Euilat, moreover, is of the race of Ham. For thus again it is written: The sons of Ham, Cush and Misraim, Phut and Caraan the sons of Cush, Sabâ and Euilat; that is the Homerites and Indians, for Sabâ is situated in the Homerite country, and Euilat is in India. For the Persian Gulf divides those two countries. And that country has gold according to sacred scripture. It has also the pezerôs which Scripture calls anthrax (carbuncle) and the jasper stone, by which it designates the leek-green stone. Clearly therefore does divine scripture, as being really divine, relate these things, even as the whole of our treatise goes to show.”

“Then there is the ocean that encircles the entire earth like a sort of river and to which it seems to me that Scripture referred when it said that "a river flowed out of paradise." It has sweet potable water and supplies the seas, but because the water remains stagnant in the seas for a long time it becomes brackish. The sun and the waterspouts are constantly drawing up the less dense water, and from this the clouds are formed and the rain comes, the water becoming sweet by filtration. This ocean is divided into four heads, of four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; this is the Ganges of India. The name of the second is Gehon; this is the Nile, which comes down from Ethiopia into Egypt. The name of the third is Tigris, and of the fourth, Euphrates.”

“And the gold of that land is good,.... Arabia was famous for gold: Diodorus Siculus (x) speaks of gold in Arabia, called "apyrus", which is not melted by fire out of small filings, as other; but as soon as dug is said to be pure gold, and that in the size of chestnuts, and of such a flaming colour, that the most precious stones are set in it by artificers for ornament: and in Colchis and Scythia, as Strabo (y) relates, there are rivers which produce gold; and from whence came the fable of the golden fleece, the Argonauts went to Colchis for: there is the bdellium, and the onyx stone; the first of these is either an aromatic gum; the tree, according to Pliny (z), is black, and is of the size of an olive tree, has the leaf of an oak, and its fruit is like capers; it is found in Arabia, India, Media, and Babylon; but the best, according to him, is in Bactriana, and, next to that, the bdellium of Arabia: or else it is a precious stone, and which the Jewish writers (a) commonly take to be crystal; and, according to Solinus (b), the best crystal is in Scythia. Bochart (c) would have it that the pearl is meant, because of its whiteness and roundness, for which the manna is compared to it, Num 11:7 and the rather because of the pearl fishery at Catipha, taking Havilah to be that part of Arabia which lies upon the Persian gulf. The latter, the onyx, is a precious stone, which has its name from its being of the colour of a man's nail; and, according to Pliny (d), the onyx marble is found in the mountains of Arabia, and the ancients thought it was nowhere else; and he speaks elsewhere of the Arabian onyx precious stone, and of the sardonyx, as in the same country (e); and some think that is here meant; though the word is sometimes by the Septuagint rendered the emerald; and the best of these, according to Solinus (f) and Pliny (g), were in Scythia. (After the global destruction of Noah's flood, it is doubtful that the location of these places could be determined with degree of certainty today. Ed.) (x) Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 133. (y) Geograph. l. 1. p. 31. & l. 11. p. 344. (z) Nat. Hist. l. 12. c. 9. (a) Jarchi in Numb. xi. 7. David de Pomis Tzemach David, fol. 8. 3. (b) Polyhistor. c. 25. (c) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 5. p. 675, &c. (d) Nat. Hist. l. 36. c. 7. (e) lb. l. 37. c. 6. (f) Polyhistor. ut supra. (c. 25) (g) Ut supra, (Nat. Hist. l. 36.) c. 5.”

“There is bdellium (בדלח bedolach) and the onyx stone, אבן השהם eben hashshoham - Bochart thinks that the bedolach or bdellium means the pearl-oyster; and shoham is generally understood to mean the onyx, or species of agate, a precious stone which has its name from ονυξ a man's nail, to the color of which it nearly approaches. It is impossible to say what is the precise meaning of the original words; and at this distance of time and place it is of little consequence.”