Written Rocks

Job_19:24
Let us, today return to the passage in which Job desires for his
words some enduring monument. He says, O that my words
were now written! Oh, that they were printed in a book! That they
were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!
In an antiquarian point of view, this is a deeply interesting
passage, being the earliest existing reference to the most ancient
modes of writingnot to one of them, but to several, to all, in fact,
that appear to have been known at the time this book was written.
The strange blunder of the translators about printing in a book, is
calculated to provoke a smile, and is on that ground alone
censurable. We knew a man by no means ill informed or
unintelligent, who contended from this that printing was but the
revival of an ancient invention known in the time of Job, with the
only alternative that else Job predicted the invention, and
declared his conviction that his words would hereafter be printed
in a bookand this has really come to pass, he triumphantly
added, deeming that his acumen had added one more to the long
list of fulfilled prophecies. This carelessness is the less excusable,
as the earlier versions are free from this fault. In them we have,
O that they were put in a boke; Note: Rogers Bible, and
Bishops Bible. or, O that they were written in a booke. Note:
Geneva Bible.
Still there might be something to mislead in the words written
and book, not that they are absolutely incorrect, but that they
have acquired more restricted signification than they anciently
possessed. Not, however, to enter into questions as to the

meaning of words, we shall give the translation which seems to us

preferable
O that my words were now recorded!
O that they were engraven on a tablet!
With an iron graver upon lead;
That they were graven in a rock forever.
The careful reader will here find four ideas, rising to a climax in
the grandest and most durable form of writing.
Job first expresses a wish that his words were simply written
down or recorded in the ordinary mode, without specifying any
neither shall we now, as there will be a future occasion to do so.
But we cannot help pointing out the error of those who contend,
from the text before us, that graving on metal or stone were the
only modes of writing known in the time of Job, and,
consequently, that there were no such things as books, or rather
rolls (which was the ancient form of books), in existence. But why
not? The world was already 2,200 years old at the very earliest
date ascribed to the history of Job, and men inherited, through
Noahs family, the knowledge and accumulated improvements of
the antediluvians. And as this is urged by those who insist upon
the most ancient date of the history and the Book of Job, it may
well be asked, How in the alleged absence of the means of
copious writing, in the shape of books of leaves or bark, or rolls of
skins (not parchment, which was later), linen, or papyrus, the
Book of Job itself came to be written and preserved? No one will
surely contend that a volume so large was engraven on stone, or
even on metal. Further, in the time of Moses, materials for large
rolls of writing existed, or how else were the books of the
Pentateuch written, for only the ten commandments were
engraven upon stone? Lastly, we have actual possession of

Egyptian papyrus rolls of the most remote Pharaonic age; and

through the sculptures, we are enabled to ascertain that this
mode of writing was common in the age of Suphis, or Cheops, the
builder of the great pyramid, more than 2,000 years before Christ,
and therefore anterior to the age of Job.
The patriarch then goes on to engraving or writing on tablets.
These tablets may have been of wood, earthenware, or bone.
Waxen tablets we take to be of a later age, not well suited to a
warm climate, and never used but for temporary memoranda, like
our slates. We mention bone, in the recollection that the shoulderblades of sheep were, in ancient times, and especially among
pastoral tribes, the representatives of our ivory tablets.
Then Job comes to the process of writing on tablets of soft metal,
with a pen or stylus of harder metalwith a pen of iron on tablets
of lead. Metal tablets for the purpose of writing were composed of
plates of lead, copper, brass, and other metals. These, as also
tablets of wood, mentioned before, were either single, or
frequently from two to five leaves were done up into a sort of
book, something like our slate books. Lead, from its comparative
cheapness and softness, and from the facility of beating out or
melting down writing no longer useful, was much used, and was
probably first employed for this purpose, though the prominent
mention of it by Job does not imply that no other metals were
used. It is stated by Pliny that sheets of lead were still in his time
used for important public documents. A zealous antiquary of the
seventeenth century, Montfaucon, states that he purchased in
1699, at Rome, an ancient book entirely composed of lead. It was
about four inches long and three inches wide; and not only were
the two pieces that formed the cover and the leaves, six in

number, of lead, but also the pin inserted through the rings to hold
the leaves together, as well as the hinges and the nails.
Leaden Book from Montfaucon

Leaden Book from Bonanni

Each of the twelve pages was charged with a gnostic symbolical

figure, and underneath the four first are inscriptions, in Greek and
Etruscan characters, unintelligible to him, but which might
probably now be deciphered. The characters inscribed on every
leaf are copied in Montfaucons work. He also gives from Father
Bonannis Museum Kircherianum, the presentation and
description of another leaden book, which had been taken from

an ancient tomb, containing seven leaves inscribed with Greek,

Hebrew, Etruscan, and Latin characters; all of which are declared
(perhaps too summarily) to have been unintelligible. Both these
books date probably not older than the early ages of the Christian
era; but they adequately represent a custom of more ancient date.
Brass, as a more durable metal, was used for inscriptions
designed to last the longest; such as laws, treaties, and alliances.
These were, however, usually written in large tablets of the metal.
The ornamental brasses on our own churches, many of which are
still in good preservation, though many centuries old, illustrate this
still more ancient use of tablets of brass. The stylus, or pen for
writing on metal tablets, was sometimes tipped with a diamond; a
circumstance to which there is an allusion in Jer_17:1.
It was certainly a grand idea for man to think of committing to the
living rock, and of thus giving a magnificent permanency to the
record of his history and his thoughts. There are rocks presenting
cliffs so smooth, with stone of texture so soft, as absolutely to
tempt the idle saunterer to write or to scrawl unmeaning figures
on them. In time this would suggest the desirableness of
inscribing harder rocks with memorials designed to last; and
where a smooth surface was not naturally presented, the face of
the rock would be leveled for the purpose.
Many such monuments of the most ancient date have been found
in various countries, but none more extensive or remarkable than
those in the Written Mountains of Sinai, which also derive
especial interest from the locality in which they are found, so
memorable in Jewish history, and not so remote from the place of
Jobs abodesome, indeed, making it much nearer than we do
but that he might have known of them had they then been thus

sculptured. It is not, however, likely that they were, though this

passage shows that his view was directed to such monuments.
These inscriptions are found in the neighborhood of Mount Sinai;
or, to speak more accurately, in the hills and valleys which,
branching out from its roots, run toward the northwest to the
vicinity of the eastern shore of the Gulf of Suez; insomuch that
travellers now-a-days, from the monastery of Mount Sinai to the
town of Suez, whatever route they take (for there are many) will
see these inscriptions upon the rocks of most of the valleys
through which they pass, to within half a days journey, or a little
more, of the coast. Besides these localities, similar inscriptions
are met with, and these in great numbers, on Mount Serbal, lying
to the south of the above-mentioned routes; as also, but more
rarely, in some valleys to the south of Mount Serbal itself.
Inscriptions on Rocks in the Wady Mokatteb

But the valley which, beyond all the rest, claims especial notice, is
that which stretches from the neighborhood of the eastern shore
of the Gulf of Suez for the space of three hours journey in a
southern direction. Here, to the left of the road, the traveller finds
a chain of steep sandstone rocks, perpendicular as walls, which
afford shelter at mid-day, and in the afternoon, from the burning
rays of the sun. These beyond all besides, contain a vast
multitude of tolerably well-preserved inscriptions, whence this
valley has obtained the name of Wady Mokatteb, or the Written
Valley. Adjoining to it is a hill, where stones in like manner are
covered with writing, and which bears the name of Djebel
Mokatteb, or the Written Mountain. Intermingled with the
inscriptions, images and figures of men and animals are of
frequent occurrence, all executed in so rude a style, as may be
well supposed to have belonged to the time, when men first

began to inscribe upon the rocks their abiding memorials, and

evidently with the same instruments and by the same hands as
those which formed the inscriptions. Indeed, those who have
taken the pains to copy portions of these, declare that it was often
difficult to distinguish these figures from the letters. This suggests
that the writers sometimes employed images as parts of letters,
and, vice vers, images for groups of letters. The letters are in an
alphabetic character, not otherwise known to paleaographists,
and many attempts have been made to decipher them, but not
until lately with any degree of success. The inscriptions were first
noticed by the traveller Cosmas in the year 535, and the character
was even then unknown. He supposed they were the work of the
ancient Hebrews; and says, that certain Jews who had read them,
explained them to him as the journey of such one, of such a tribe,
in such a year and month. This explanation might be understood
to intimate that the inscriptions were made by members of the
successive generations of ancient Israelites, in visits which they
paid to a place so memorable in their history, and does not
coincide with the more prevalent and lately revived notion, that
this work employed the leisure hours of the Israelites during their
sojourn in this quarter.
Passing by abortive speculations, we may mention the result of
the investigations of Professor Beer of Leipsic, who made these
inscriptions the object of special study. It is his opinion that they
afford the only remains of the language and character once
peculiar to the Nabathaeans of Arabia Petraea; and he supposed
that if, at any future time, stones with the writing of the country
should be found among the ruins of Petra, the character would
prove to be the same with those of the inscriptions of Sinai. He
did not know that the fact of this resemblance has been
substantiated. But we can point out that in the (then unpublished

though printed) travels of Irby and Mangles, mention is made of a

tomb in Petra, with an oblong tablet, containing an inscription in
five long lines, and immediately underneath a single figure on a
large scale, probably the date. The characters were such as
none of the party had seen before, excepting Mr. Banks, who
stated them to be precisely similar to those he had seen
scratched on the rocks in the Wady Mokatteb and about the foot
of Sinai. This, from so accurate an antiquarian observer as Mr.
Banks, is of more conclusive value than even that of the two
gallant travellers themselves could have been; as the
inexperienced eye fancies resemblance, where the experienced
one finds large difference.
According to this view, the inscriptions will probably be found to
have been made by the native inhabitants of these mountains.
They are, as Mr. Banks well defines, rather scratched than
engraven, and certainly present a very rude appearance. The
contents of the inscriptions, as made out by Professor Beer, and
so far as he has proceeded, consist only of proper names,
preceded by a word signifying peace; but sometimes
memoriatus sit, and sometimes blessed. Before the names the
word bar or ben, that is son, sometimes occurs; and they are
sometimes followed by one or two words at the endthus the
word priest appears twice as a title. In one or two instances, the
name is followed by a phrase or sentence, which has not yet been
deciphered. Among the names some Jewish or Christian ones
have been found; and the words which are not proper names
seem to belong to the Aramaean dialect. A language of this kind
the Professor conceives to have been spoken by the
Nabathaeans before the Arabic language prevailed over those
parts, and of that language and writing he regards these as the
only monuments now known to exist.

This somewhat disappointing theory seemed at one time likely to

receive general acceptance; but it has now been given up, even
in Germany, where the very learned Professor Tuch has argued
for a date some centuries earlier than Beers explanation will
allow; and the Rev. Charles Forster has just set forth a claim to
the discovery of a new key to the reading and interpretation, by
which he finds that they were the work of the Israelites during
their sojourn in this wilderness. Note: The One Primeval
Language traced fundamentally through Ancient Inscriptions:
including the Voice of Israel from the Rocks of Sinai. By the Rev.
Charles Forster, B.D. London, 1851. According to him, the nation,
during their various wanderings after the passage of the Red Sea,
and before the publication of the Pentateuch, Note: This is
inferred from the absence of any quotations therefrom which
would have been certain to appear in any inscriptions of posterior
date. not in accordance with any public decree, but in its private
capacity as represented by individuals, recorded upon the rocks
among which it temporarily sojourned, the various miracles it
witnessed, the sufferings and adventures it underwent. This is in
itself not improbable. They came from a country possessed in all
its members, high and low, with a rage for turning mountains into
booksfrom a country which is covered with inscriptions of every
degree of magnitude, wherever there is a rock to receive the
chisel; and this familiarity with the practice might easily suggest to
many of them, the fitness of employing their abundant leisure, in
the giving the like enduring record to the signal events which had
marked their pilgrimage. As rendered by Mr. Forster, these
records comprise, besides the healing of the waters of Marah, the
passage of the Red Sea, with the introduction of Pharaoh twice by
name, and two notices of a vain attempt of the Egyptian tyrant to
save himself by flight on horseback from the returning waters;
together with hieroglyphical representations of himself and his

horse. They comprise, further, the miraculous supplies of manna

and of flesh, the battle of Rephidim, with the mention of Moses by
his office, and of Aaron and others by their names; the same
inscription repeated, describing the holding up of Moses hands
by Aaron and Hur, and their supporting him with a stone,
illustrated by a drawing apparently of the stone, containing within
it the inscription, and over it the figure of Moses with uplifted
hands; and lastly, the plague of fiery serpents, with the
representation of a serpent in the act of coming down as if from
heaven, upon a prostrate Israelite.
These references to the recorded events of the Exodus,
compose, however, but a small part of the Sinaite inscriptions as
yet in our possession; the great mass of which, Mr. Forster
informs us, consist of descriptions of rebellious Israel, under the
figures of kicking asses, restive camels, rampant goats, sluggish
tortoises, and lizards of the desert.
Among other objections that may be urged against the
interpretation thus furnished, is, that a people not enjoined to this
work, but (as this author supposes) doing it spontaneously as a
sort of labor of love, would be little likely thus to work to
perpetuate the memory of their misdeeds and unbelief under such
degrading images. The theory is open to other objections of even
more weight than this, but in the face of all these, the evidence
produced is very strong, if not, as yet, altogether so conclusive as
to be implicitly received, that, as we were formerly taught to
believe, we have in these inscriptions the autographic memorials
of Israels sojourn in the wilderness.
The following are a few specimens of Mr. Forsters translations of
these inscriptions

The red geese rise from the sea;

Lusting, the people eat of them.
The hard stone the people satiates with water thirsting.
Prayeth unto God the prophet [upon] a hard great stone, [his]
hands sustaining Aaron, Hur.
The people Moses provoketh to anger, kicking like an ass.
[At] the water springs muster the people, raileth against Jehovah
crying out.
The people at Marah drinketh like a wild ass.
The people of the Hebrews biddeth begone Jehovah.