Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments / A Sketch of the Most Striking Confirmations of the Bible, From Recent Discoveries in Egypt, Palestine, Assyria, Babylonia, Asia Minor

by A. H. Sayce

The covenant name of the God of Israel itself occurs in the inscription, spelt in exactly the same way as in the Old Testament. Its occurrence is a proof, if any were needed, that the superstition which afterwards prevented the Jews from pronouncing it did not as yet exist. The name under which God was worshipped in Israel was familiar to the nations round about. Nay, more; we gather that even after the attempt of Jezebel to introduce the Baalim of Sidon into the northern kingdom, Yahveh was still regarded as the national god, and that the worship carried on at the high places, idolatrous and [pg 081] contrary as it was to the law, was nevertheless performed in His name. The high-place of Nebo, like so many of the other localities mentioned in the inscription, is also mentioned in the prophecy against Moab contained in Isa. xv. xvi. It is even possible that the words of the verse in the Book of Isaiah in which it is named have undergone transposition, and that the true reading is, “He is gone up to Dibon and to Beth-Bamoth to weep; Moab shall howl over Nebo and over Medeba.” The inscription informs us that Beth-Bamoth, “the house of the high-places,” was the name of a place near Dibon, the name of which appears in the last verse of Isaiah xv. under the form of Dimon, the letter b being changed by the prophet into m, in order to connect it with the word dâm, “blood.” Kirkha, “the wall of the forest,” the modern Kerak, is called Kir of Moab and Kir-haresh or Kir-hareseth by Isaiah, and Kir-heres by Jeremiah, which by a slight change of vocalisation would signify “the wall of the forest.” The form Kir-haraseth is also used in the Book of Kings.

The story told by the Stone, and the account of the war against Moab given in the Bible, supplement one another. Dr. Ginsburg has suggested that the deliverance of Moab from Israel was brought about during the reign of Ahaziah, the successor of Ahab, and that Joram, the successor of Ahaziah, was subsequently driven out of Jahaz, which lay on the southern side of the Arnon; but that after this the tide of fortune turned, Joram summoned his allies from Judah and Edom, ravaged Moab, and blockaded Mesha in his capital of Kirkha. Then came the sacrifice by Mesha of his eldest son on the wall of Kirkha—so that “there was great indignation against Israel,” and the allied forces retreated back “to their own land.”

The Moabite Stone shows us what were the forms of the Phœnician letters used on the eastern side of the Jordan in the time of Ahab. The forms employed in Israel and Judah on the western side could not have differed much; and we may therefore see in these venerable characters the precise mode of writing employed by the earlier prophets of the Old Testament. This knowledge is of great importance for the correction and restoration of corrupt passages, and more especially of proper names, the spelling of which has been deformed by copyists.

Just, however, as the writing of two persons at the present day must differ, so also the writing of two nations like the Moabites and Jews must have differed to some extent. Moreover, there must have been some distinction between the more cursive writing of a papyrus-roll and the carefully cut letters of a public monument like that of Mesha. Indeed, that such a distinction did exist we have proof in a passage (Isa. viii. 1) 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 written 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 [pg 083] 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 was after all little more than a guess. The seals are usually distinguished by the absence of any symbols or other devices, as well 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 of these seals have been found in Babylonia and Mesopotamia, 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.

It is quite otherwise now. An inscription of some length has been discovered in Jerusalem itself, which is certainly as old as the time of Isaiah, and may be older still. In the summer of 1880, one of the native pupils of Mr. Schick, a German architect long settled in Jerusalem, was playing with some other lads in the so-called Pool of Siloam, and while wading up a channel cut in the rock which leads into the Pool, slipped and fell into the water. On rising to the surface, he noticed what looked like letters on the rock which formed the southern wall of the channel. He told Mr. Schick of what he had seen; and the latter, on visiting the spot, found that an ancient inscription, concealed for the most part by the water, actually existed there.

The Pool is of comparatively modern construction, but it encloses the remains of a much older reservoir, which, like the modern one, was supplied with water through a tunnel excavated in the rock. This tunnel communicates with the so-called Spring of the Virgin, the only natural spring of water in or near Jerusalem. It rises below the walls of the city, on the western bank of the valley of the Kidron; and the tunnel through which its waters are conveyed is consequently cut through the ridge, that forms the southern part of the Temple Hill. The Pool of Siloam lies on the opposite side of this ridge, at the mouth of the valley called that of the Cheesemakers (Tyropϙn) in the time of Josephus, but which is now filled up with rubbish, and in large part built over. According to Lieutenant Conder's measurements, the length of the tunnel is 1,708 yards; it does not, however, run in a straight line, and towards the centre there are two culs de sac, of which the inscription now offers an explanation. At the entrance on the western or Siloam side its height is about sixteen feet; but the roof grows gradually lower, until in one place it is not quite two feet above the floor of the passage.

The Siloam Inscription (tracing from a squeeze, taken 15th July, 1881, by Lieuts. Conder and Mantell, R. E.).

The inscription occupies the under part of an artificial tablet in the wall of rock, about nineteen feet from where the conduit opens out upon the Pool of Siloam, and on the right-hand side of one who enters it. After lowering the level of the water, Mr. Schick endeavoured to take a copy of it; but as not only the letters of the text, but every flaw in the rock were filled with a deposit of lime left by the water, all he could send to Europe was a collection of unmeaning scrawls. Besides the difficulty of distinguishing the letters, it was also necessary to sit in the mud and water, and to work by the dim light of [pg 087] a candle, as the place where the inscription is engraved is perfectly dark. All this rendered it impossible for anyone not acquainted with Phœnician palæography to make an accurate transcript. The first intelligible copy accordingly was made by Professor Sayce after several hours of careful study; but this too contained several doubtful characters, the real forms of which could only be determined by the removal of the calcareous matter with which they were coated. In March, 1881, six weeks after Sayce's visit, Dr. Guthe arrived in Jerusalem, and after making a more complete facsimile of the inscription than had previously been possible, removed the deposit of lime by means of an acid, and so revealed the original appearance of the tablet. Letters which had previously been concealed now became visible, and the exact shapes of them all could be observed. First a cast, and then squeezes of the text were taken; and the scholars of Europe had at last in their hands an exact copy of the old text.