Mesha Stele

Sayce1892 historical source page 87

EARLY HEBRE^y INSCRIPTIONS. 79 exist wc have proof in a passage (Isa. viii. i) which has been mistranslated in the Authorised Version, but which ought to be rendered : * Take thee a great slab, and write upon it with the graving-tool of the people : Hasten spoil, hurry booty.' Here words which were afterwards to be made more emphatic by becoming the name of one of Isaiah's children were wTitten in a way that all could read, not in the running hand of a scroll, but in the large clear characters of a public document. What these characters exactly were a recent discovery has enabled us to learn. Hebrew inscriptions of an early date have long been sought for in vain. We knew of one or two inscribed fragments from the neighbourhood of the Pool of Siloam at Jerusalem, and of a few seals which might be referred to the period before the Babylonish Captivity; but, unfortunately, none of these could be assigned to a definite date, and even the conclusion that some of them were pre-exilic w^as after all little more than a guess. The seals are usually distinguished by the absence of any symbols or other devices, as w^ell as by a horizontal line drawn across the middle, which divides the inscription into two halves. The proper names also which occur on them are, in the majority of cases, compounded with the sacred name Yahveh. Several oi these seals have been found in Babylonia and Meso- potamia, and may therefore be regarded as memorials of the Jewish exile. But the legends they bear are always short, and consist of little else than proper names ; and, as their date was uncertain, it was impossible to draw any solid inferences from them as to the character of the writing employed in Judah or Israel before the age of Nebuchadnezzar.