Job 19:24

That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
graven	יֵחָצְבֽוּן ye.cha.tze.Vun	H2672	to cut or carve (wood · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + paragogic nun
iron	בַּרְזֶ֥ל bar.Zel	H1270	iron (as cutting) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
pen	בְּעֵט be.'et-	H5842	a stylus or marking stick · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
lead	וְעֹפָ֑רֶת ve.'o.Fa.ret	H5777	lead (from its dusty color) · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular absolute
rock	בַּצּ֥וּר ba.Tzur	H6697	properly · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
ever	לָ֝עַ֗ד la.'Ad	H5703	properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Jeremiah 17:1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the ho…
Exodus 28:11-12 With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones with the names of the children of…
Exodus 28:21 And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every o…
Exodus 32:16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
Deuteronomy 27:2-3 And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up grea…
Deuteronomy 27:8 And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Job 19:23–end

In all the conferences between Job and his friends we do not find any more weighty and considerable lines than these; would one have expected it? Here is much both of Christ and heaven in these verses: and he that said such things as these declared plainly that he sought the better country, that is, the heavenly; as the patriarchs of that age did, Heb 11:14. We have here Job's creed, or confession of faith. His belief in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and the principles of natural religion, he had often professed: but here we find him no stranger to revealed religion; though the revelation of the promised Seed, and the promised inheritance, was then discerned only li…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 19:24

pen--graver. lead--poured into the engraven characters, to make them better seen [UMBREIT]. Not on leaden plates; for it was "in the rock" that they were engraved. Perhaps it was the hammer that was of "lead," as sculptors find more delicate incisions are made by it, than by a harder hammer. FOSTER (One Primeval Language) has shown that the inscriptions on the rocks in Wady-Mokatta, along Israel's route through the desert, record the journeys of that people, as Cosmas Indicopleustes asserted, A.D. 535. for ever--as long as the rock lasts.

John Gill on Job 19:24

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 l…

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The Church Fathers

"With an iron stylet, and on the lead. Just as the lead is engraved with the iron pen, so the heart of the man must be impressed by my speeches. "Or as a souvenir they are carved on the stone," so that they may be known to those who announce the truth without ever faltering.
— Augustine of Hippo, ANNOTATIONS ON THE BOOK OF JOB (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Graving — (1.) Heb. hatsabh. Job 19:24, rendered “graven,” but generally means hewn stone or wood, in quarry or forest. (2.) Heb. harush. Jer. 17:1, rendered “graven,” and indicates generally artistic work in…
Lead — This is one of the most common of metals, found generally in veins of rocks, though seldom in a metallic state, and most commonly in combination with sulphur. It was early known to the ancients, and…
Writing — The art of writing must have been known in the time of the early Pharaohs. Moses is commanded “to write for a memorial in a book” (Ex. 17:14) a record of the attack of Amalek. Frequent mention is…
Books · Probable origin of — Probable origin of
Iron · Made into: Graving tools — Made into: Graving tools
Lead · Used in making inscriptions on stone — Used in making inscriptions on stone
Pen · Ma — Ma
Pillars · Of memorial: Often had inscriptions — Of memorial: Often had inscriptions
Rocks · Described as: Durable — Described as: Durable

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Job 19:24

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Job 19:23–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 19:24

John Gill on Job 19:24

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Job 19:24

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Job 19:23–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 19:24

John Gill on Job 19:24

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Keil & Delitzsch on Job 19:21-25

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Job 19:23

Rashi on Job 19:24