the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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King James Version
Job 19:24
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carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock.
That with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!
That with an iron pen and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!
I wish they were carved with an iron pen into lead, or carved into stone forever.
that with an iron chisel and with lead they were engraved in a rock forever!
That they were graven with an iron pen in lead, in the rock for ever!
That with an iron pen and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!
"That with an iron stylus and [molten] lead They were engraved in the rock forever!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
that tho be writun in a book with an yrun poyntil, ethir with a plate of leed; ethir with a chisel be grauun in a flynt?
by an iron stylus on lead, or chiseled in stone forever.
or chiseled into rock.
That with an iron pen and lead They were graven in the rock for ever!
And with an iron pen and lead be cut into the rock for ever!
that, engraved with iron and filled with lead, they were cut into rock forever!
That with an iron style and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!
I wish they were carved with an iron tool into lead or scratched on a rock so that they would last forever.
That with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!
That they were grauen with an iron pen and lead, in the rocke for euer.
If only they were cut forever into the rock with an iron cutter and lead!
O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!
And grauen with an yron pen in lead, or in stone for euer!
That they were engraved with an iron pen on lead or in the rock for ever!
Or with a chisel carve my words in stone and write them so that they would last forever.
That, with a stylus of iron and with lead, for all time - in the rock, they could be graven!
With an iron pen and in a plate of lead, or else be graven with an instrument in flint stone?
Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!
And grauen with an iron penne in leade, or in stone, to continue.
with an iron pen and lead, or graven in the rocks!
or were inscribed in stone foreverby an iron stylus and lead!
That with an iron pen and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!
That with a pen of iron and with lead they might be engraved on a rock forever!
Oh that they were cut with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!
With a pen of iron and lead -- For ever in a rock they may be hewn.
wolde God they were graue wt an yron pene in leade or in stone.
"That with an iron stylus and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!
That they were engraved on a rock With an iron pen and lead, forever!
"That with an iron stylus and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!
That with an iron stylus and leadThey were engraved in the rock forever!
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
graven: Exodus 28:11, Exodus 28:12, Exodus 28:21, Exodus 32:16, Deuteronomy 27:2, Deuteronomy 27:3, Deuteronomy 27:8, Jeremiah 17:1
Reciprocal: Job 31:35 - mine Psalms 102:18 - This Isaiah 8:1 - write Isaiah 30:8 - write Jeremiah 30:2 - General
Cross-References
The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.
It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.
Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;
As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the Lord , no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!] Or "that they were written with an iron pen and lead, that they were cut or hewn out in a rock for ever"; not with both an iron and leaden pen, or pencil; for the marks of the latter are not durable, and much less could it be used on a rock according to our version; but the sense seems to be, that they might be written with an iron pen, which was used in writing, Jeremiah 17:1; upon a sheet of lead, as the Vulgate Latin version; for it was usual in ancient times, as Pliny q and others relate, for books to be made of sheets of lead, and for public records to be engrossed, as in plates of brass, so sometimes in sheets of lead, for the perpetuity of them; or else it refers to the cutting out of letters on stones, as the law was on two tables of stone, and filling up the incisions or cuttings with lead poured into them, as Jarchi suggests: so Pliny, r speaks of stone pillars in Arabia and the parts adjacent, with unknown characters on them; also this may have respect to the manner of writing on mountains and rocks formerly, as the Israelites at or shortly after the times of Job did. There are now, in the wilderness through which the Israelites passed, hills called Gebel-el-mokatab, the written mountains, engraved with unknown ancient characters, out into the hard marble rock; supposed to be the ancient Hebrew, written by the Israelites for their diversion and improvement which are observed by some modern travellers s. In the last age, Petrus a Valle and Thomas a Novaria saw them; the latter of which transcribed some of them, some of which seemed to be like to the Hebrew letters now in use, and others to the Samaritans; and some agreed with neither t; and Cosmoss the Egyptian u, who wrote A. D. 535, declares on his own testimony, that all the mansions of the Hebrews in the wilderness were to be seen in stones with Hebrew letters engraved on them, which seemed to be an account of their journeys in it. The inscription on a stone at Horeb, brought from thence by the above mentioned Thomas a Novaria, and which Kircher w has explained thus,
"God shall make a virgin conceive, and she shall bring forth a son,''
is thought by learned men to be of a later date, and the explication of it is not approved of by them. x Job may have in view his sepulchre hewn out of a rock, as was usual, and as that was our Lord was laid in; and so his wish might be that the following words were his funeral epitaph, and that they might be cut out and inscribed upon his sepulchral monument, his rocky grave; that everyone that passed by might read his strong expressions of faith in a living Redeemer, and the good hope he had of a blessed resurrection.
q Nat. Hist. l. 13. c. 11. Alex. ab Alex. l. 2. c. 30. Pausaniae Messenica, sive, l. 4. p. 266. & Boeotica, sive, l. 9. p. 588. r Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. & 29. s See a Journal from Cairo, &c. in 1722, p. 45, 46. and Egmont and Heyman's Travels, vol. ii. p. 171, 181. t Antiqu. Eccles. Orient. p. 147. u Apud Montfaucon, tom. 2. p. 205. w Prodrom. Copt. c. 8. p. 201, 207. x Vide Hottinger. Praefat. ad Cipp. Hebr. p. 6, 7, 8. Wagenseil Carmin. Lipman. Confut. p. 429, &c.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
That they were graven - Cut in, or sculptured - as is done on stones. That they might become thus a permanent record.
With an iron pen - A stylus, or an engraving tool - for so the word (עט ‛êṭ) means. The instrument formerly used for writing or engraying was a small, sharp-pointed piece of iron or steel, that was employed to mark on lead or stone - somewhat in the form of small graying tools now. When the writing was on wax, the instrument was made with a flat head, that it could be obliterated by pressing it on or passing it over the wax.
The reason why Job mentions the iron pen here is, that he wished a perment record. He did not desire one made with paint or chalk, but one which would convey his sentiments down to future times.
And lead - That is, either engraved on lead, or more probably with lead. It was customary to cut the letters deep in stone, and then to fill fill them up with lead, so that the record became more permanent. This I take to be the meaning here. The Hebrew will scarcely allow of the supposition that Job meant that the records should be made on plates of lead - though such plates were used early, but perhaps not until after the time of Job.
In the rock - It was common, at an early period, to make inscriptions on the smooth surface of a rock. Perhaps the first thai were made were on stones, which were placed as way marks, or monuments over the dead - as we now make such inscriptions on grave-stones. Then it became common to record any memorable transaction - as a battle - on stones or rocks; and perhaps, also, sententious and apothegmatical remarks were recorded in this manner, to admonish travelers, or to transmit them to posterity. Numerous inscriptions of this kind are found by travelers in the East, on tombs, and on rocks in the desert. All that can be appropriate here is a notice of such early inscriptions of that kind in Arabia, as would render it probable that they existed in the time of Job, or such as indicate great antiquity. Happily we are at no loss for such inscriptions on rocks in the country where Job lived.
The Wady Mokatta, the cliffs of which bear these inscriptions, is a valley entering Wady Sheikh, and bordering the upper regions of the Sinai mountains. It extends for about three hours’ march, and in most places its rocks present abrupt cliffs, twenty or thirty feet high. From these cliffs large masses have separated, and lie at the bottom of the valley. The cliffs and rocks are thickly covered with inscriptions, which are continued at intervals of a few hundred paces only, for at least the distance of two hours and a half. Burckhardt, in his travels from Akaba to Cairo, by Mount Sinai, observed many inscriptions on the rocks, part of which he has copied. See his Travels in Syria, Lond. Ed. pp. 506, 581, 582, 606, 613, 614. Pococke, who also visited the regions of Mount Sinai in 1777, has given a description of the inscriptions which he saw on the rocks at Mount Sinai. Vol. i. 148, be says,” There are on many of the rocks, both near these mountains and in the road, a great many inscriptions in an ancient character; many of them I copied, and observed that most of them were not cut, but stained, making the granite of a lighter color, and where the stone had scaled, I could see the stain had sunk into the stone.”
Numerous specimens of these inscriptions may be seen in Pococke, vol. i. p. 148. These inscriptions were also observed by Robinson and Smith, and are described by them in Biblical Researches, vol. i. 108, 118, 119, 123, 161, 167. They are first mentioned by Cosmas, about 535 a.d. He supposed them to be the work of the ancient Hebrews, and says that certain Jews, who had read them, explained them to him as noting “the journey of such an one, out of such a tribe, in such a year and month.” They have also been noticed by many early travelers, as Neitzschitz, p. 149; Moncongs, i. p. 245; and also by Niebuhr in his Reisebeschr. i. p. 250. The copies of them given by Pococke and Niebuhr are said to be very imperfect; those by Seetzen are better, and those made by Burckhardt are tolerably accurate. Rob. Bib. Research. i. 553. A large number of them have been copied and published by Mr. Grey, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, vol. iii. pt. 1, Lond. 1832; consisting of one hundred and seventy-seven in the unknown character, nine in Greek, and one in Latin. These inscriptions, which so long excited the curiosity of travelers, have been recently deciphered (in the year 1839) by Professor Beer, of the University of Leipzig. He had turned his attention to them in the year 1833, but without success.
In the year 1839 his attention was again turned to them, and after several months of the most persevering application, he succeeded in making out the alphabet, and was enabled to read all the inscriptions which have been copied, with a good degree of accuracy. According to the results of this examination, the characters of the Sinaitic inscriptions belong to a distinct and independent alphabet. Some of the letters are wholly unique; the others have more or less affinity with the Palmyrene, and particularly with the Estrangelo and the Cufic. They are written from right to left. The contempts of the inscriptions, so far as examined, consist only of proper names, preceded by a word which is usually שׁלם shâlôm, peace, though occasionally some other word is used. In one or two instances the name is followed by a sentence which has not yet been deciphered. The names are those common in Arabic. It is a remarkable fact that not one Jewish or Christian name has been found.
The question, as to the writers of these inscriptions, receives very little light from their contents. A word at the end of some of them may be so read as to affirm that they were pilgrims, and this opinion Professor Beer adopts; but this is not certain. That the writers were Christians, seems apparent from many of the crosses connected with the inscriptions. The age, also, of the inscriptions, receives no light from their conents, as no date has yet been read. Beer supposes that the greater part of them could not have been written earlier than the fourth century. Little light, therefore, is cast upon the question who wrote them; what was their design; in what age they were written, or who were the pilgrims who wrote them. See Rob. Bib. Research. i. 552-556. That there were such records in the time of Job, is probable.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Job 19:24. Iron pen and lead — Some suppose that the meaning of this place is this: the iron pen is the chisel by which the letters were to be deeply cut in the stone or rock; and the lead was melted into those cavities in order to preserve the engraving distinct. But this is not so natural a supposition as what is stated above; that Job refers to the different kinds of writing or perpetuating public events, used in his time: and the quotations from Pliny and Pausanias confirm the opinion already expressed.
