For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Isn't it even you, before our Lord Jesus{TR adds "Christ"} at his coming?
crown of rejoicing: which is but a stronger phrase, to press the joy they had in their conversion and perseverance, in allusion to crowns wore at times of rejoicing, as at marriage feasts, and the like: hence we read i of the crowns of the bridegrooms, and of the brides, which were forbidden the use of in the war of Vespasian; the latter were made of gold, in the form of the city of Jerusalem, and from thence called golden cities k; and the former, some say, were made of salt and sulphur, to put them in mind of the destruction of the Sodomites, for their unnatural lusts l; others of a salt stone as clear as crystal, or of the stone Bdellium, painted in the colour of sulphur m; and some were made of myrtles and roses, but in the war of Vespasian only those made of reeds were used n; these crowns at weddings seem to be the "beautiful crowns" in