• The ancient Greek word "τόξον" ≈ "bow, rainbow, arc".
• The ancient Greek word "ουράνιο τόξο" ≈ "rainbow", literally a "heavenly bow" or "sky bow".
• The ancient Greek word "τοξικός" ≈ "of the bow, archers, bowmen" which is the source of the Latin word "toxikos" ≈ "arrows or archery".
• The English word "toxic" comes from the Latin word "toxicum" ≈ "poison" (not in the GNT (Greek New Testament)) which comes from poison put on the tips of arrows.

Can you see how "arrows" might be considered "toxic" - with or without the "poison"?

• The modern Greek word "τόξο" (TO-kso) ≈ "bow".
• The modern Greek word "ουράνιο τόξο" (u-RA-nee-o TO-kso) ≈ "rainbow".
• The modern Greek word "τοξικός" (to-ksee-KOS) ≈ "toxic". A synonym is the modern Greek word "δηλητηριώδης" (thee-lee-tee-ree-O-thees) ≈ "poison" which came from the ancient Greek word "δηλητηριώδης" ≈ "harmful, poisonous, noxious" and is the source of the English word "deleterious" .

These verses are sometimes taken to represent a vapor canopy over the earth that kept it warm and without big differences in the seasons. The reasoning goes that before the flood, without water droplets in the air, there would be no rainbows. Once the vapor canopy collapsed, after the flood, there would have been rainbows and greater differences between seasons.

There were probably lots of mosquitoes in that warm moist air under the vapor canopy. The Greek word for "mosquito" and the English word "canopy" are related.

More: So far as the net gain of a gnat into a canopy

Aristotle is talking about colors that can be produced by painters.

Aristotle saw 3 colors: red, green and blue or sea-purple. He did notice a fringe of yellow on one side.
The ancient Greek word "ἁλουργής" ≈ "sea-purple", not used in the GNT or LXX (Septuagint), is a genuine purple in contrast to an imitation purple. It comes from two Greek words.

• "ἅλς" ≈ "sea" and is related to words for "salt".
• "ἔρδω" ≈ "make" as in being "wrought".

The ancient Greek word "πορφύρα" ≈ "purple".

Tyrian purple was known as "royal purple", "imperial purple", "imperial dye", etc.

Extracted in Tyre, the basis was a small sea snail. So many sea snails were required, and the time long, that the cost of the resulting dye was very expensive. The color did not quickly fade but usually become more brighter.

Aristotle (Greek) describes the process used. Pliny the Elder (Latin) described much later.

Only the rich could afford it so it became a status symbol. Eventually, in the fourth century, only royalty were allowed to wear it.

Matthew uses the word for "scarlet" or "red" which would have been much more available. This Greek word for "red" had allusions to the power of Rome in Judea.

This color was produced from a small insect that appeared to be a seed, so the Greek word became the word for the insect, the color "red" or "scarlet" and the word for "seed".

Some soldiers would have "mocked" Jesus out of scorn. Some soldiers would have done it to psychologically cope issues of having to do things they would rather not do.

Mark uses the word for "purple".

John uses the word for "purple".

It makes more sense for the color to be "scarlet" as such a low-cost robe would have been readily available.

How common was the color "purple" in the day of Jesus? One needed to be "rich" to be able to afford such a robe.

In Exodus 31:4, the LXX has some additional text and colors not in the Hebrew.

This "emerald" appears to refer to the color rather than to the stone. The ancient Greek word "σμαράγδινος" ≈ "of emerald, emerald green" and comes from "σμάραγδος" ≈ "emerald" which was usually shortened to "μάραγδος" ≈ "emerald".

The Latin word "smaragdinus" ≈ "emerald" or "zmaragdinus" ≈ "emerald". The words denote the color rather than a specific item or material.

This "emerald" here appears to refer to an actual stone rather than just the color.

Emerald City is the destination of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

There they will find the Wizard and a horse of a different color.

Emeralds have a range of color from yellow-green to green.
Reading into what Aristotle said about the rainbow, what we call yellow may have appeared, to some, as green.

More: A horse of another color: the name of Phillip

Aristotle considers the phenomena of "halos" and "rainbows" to be related.

At the famous battle of Thermopylae between the Greeks and the Persians in 480 BC, 300 Spartans, made famous in modern times by the movie "The 300 Spartans", held off the Persian army for many days - sometimes (as reported) in a rain of arrows so dense it blocked the sun.
Finally, on the order of Xerxes, and in a cloud of arrows, as darts, they were taken out.

Tearing down part of the wall, Xerxes ordered the hill surrounded, and the Persians rained down arrows until every last Greek was dead. Wikipedia (as of 2023-10-16)

But in losing the battle tactically, the strategic effect was that the war was then won. The Greek city of Ephesus, a short distance across the Aegean Sea, would have known of that battle against the Persians. Paul appears to make an allusion to that (defensive) battle in Ephesians 6.

The English word "quail" as in "waste away". The late Latin word "quaccola" ≈ "quail" is the source of the English word "quail" for the bird.

The LXX does not use the word for "arrow" but the ancient Greek word "σχίζα" ≈ "splinter, shaft, dart" which comes from the ancient Greek word "σχίζω" ≈ "split, cleave, divide" and is related to the ancient Greek word " σχίσμα" ≈ "division" which is the source of the English word "schism".

More: Song: The church is one foundation

Another Greek word for "eye of the needle" is in Matthew and Luke.

The ancient Greek word "βελόνη" ≈ "needle".

This word appears once in the GNT where it means the "eye of the needle".

 Rainbows and the toxic arrow of time (this page)

Cruise missiles can fly thousands of miles and hit their targets within inches.

Newer GPS (Global Positioning System) technology might be used, but is susceptible to GPS satellite interference.

Mapping technologies using visual recognition (e.g., neural networks) can be used but defenders can move things (e.g., small buildings, telephone poles, etc.) to confuse the visual recognition.

What is meant by "Babylon"? Is it the original city? Is it symbolic of other cities over time?

More: Mysteries in Babylon

More: Babylon in Revelation

How might an "arrow" be such that it could "return"? These arrows do not "return in vain" or "return empty".

The Hebrew and Greek word in the LXX indicates "expert" or something with "intelligence" in the arrow (or person shooting the arrow). The Greek word is used by Matthew and spoken by Jesus.

Question: How do you guess a password from a hash?
Answer: Given the hash, guess passwords.

• Compute the hash for each guessed password.
• See if it matches.
• When it does, you have guessed the password.

This takes time as hashes take a lot of computer time. If we use very large hard drives, we can do the computation once, and use the tables to do reverse lookups. Some (hacker) sites have done this.

A rainbow table is a lookup table offering a time-memory tradeoff used in recovering the plaintext password from a password hash generated by a hash function, often a cryptographic hash function. A common application is to make attacks against hashed passwords feasible. Salt is often employed with hashed passwords to avoid this attack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table (as of 1980)

You can get a lot of space. So you can store a lot of tables. Database techniques allow the quick searching and lookup of information. The drives store the hashed values.

Note: This works in practice only when users use easily-guessed passwords and "salt" is not used in the database.