Monuments

Concise Bible Dictionary:

This word is often used in reference to ancient kingdoms, when the term simply signifies any memorial or inscription, embracing those found on bricks or tiles, equally with those found on tombs, or stately columns, or papyrus rolls.

“49. Monumental Stones” From Manners and Customs of the Bible:

Genesis 28:18. Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.
1. This stone was set up as a monument of God’s wonderful revelation to him, and of his vow (vs. 20). Thirty years later he repeated this solemn act in the same place (Gen. 35:14). Moses likewise built twelve pillars at Sinai as a sign of God’s covenant (Ex. 24:4). So Joshua set up a monument of stones in commemoration of the passage of the Jordan (Josh. 4:3-9). At Shechem also he set up a atone under an oak as a memorial of the covenant between God and his people(Josh. 24:26). In like manner Samuel erected a stone between Mizpeh and Shen to commemorate his victory over the Philistines(1 Sam. 7:12). As these stone pillars were all erected as testimonies of some great events, it has been suggested that Paul in 1 Tim. 3:15 designs to represent the Church as a pillar of testimony for the truth, God having founded and reared the Church as a monument for that purpose.
There existed in heathen countries a practice similar to the one referred to in the text. Morier gives a good illustration of our text in a little incident he saw while traveling in Persia. He says: “I remarked that our old guide, every here and there, placed a stone on a conspicuous bit of rock, or two stones one upon the other, at the same time uttering some words, which I learned were a prayer for our safe return” (Second Journey through Persia, p. 85). He had frequently seen similar stones without knowing their design.
2. The anointing of the stone by Jacob was doubtless designed as a solemn act of consecration of this stone to its monumental purposes; just as subsequently Moses, by command of God, anointed the tabernacle and its furniture (Num. 7:1). This act of the patriarch is not to be confounded with the idolatrous practice, common among heathens, of pouring oil upon stones and worshiping them. See note on Isaiah 52:6 (#527).

“211. Plastered Monuments” From Manners and Customs of the Bible:

Deuteronomy 27: 2, 3. Thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster: and thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law.
Michælis supposed that the letters were first cut in the stone and then covered entirely with plaster, so that in the coming ages, when the cement should crumble off, the law might be found in all its integrity. In this he has been followed by some commentators. The probability, however, is, that the lime was first spread over the stories, and the words of the law then cut into the plaster or painted on it. Such stones thus prepared, two thousand years ago or longer, are still in existence in Palestine. The Egyptians are said to have spread a kind of stucco over sandstone, and even over granite, before the paintings were made. Prokesch found in the tombs in the pyramids of Dashoor a stone on which red mortar had first been laid, arid then the hieroglyphics and a figure of Apis impressed on the coating.

“414. Books Tablets Monuments” From Manners and Customs of the Bible:

Job 19: 23-24. 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!I See also Jeremiah 17: 1.
Three different substances for the preservation of record’s are usually supposed to be referred to here: 1. Books. These were anciently made of linen or cotton cloth, skins, or the leaves of the papyrus. From the last word comes our English word, paper. The inner bark of trees was also sometimes used. The Latin word for bark being liber, this word at length came to signify a book; it is still found in the English word library. When made of cloth or skins the book was made up in the form of a roll. See note on Isaiah 34:4 (#511).
2. Leaden tablets. These are of high antiquity. In 1699 Montfaucon bought at Rome a very old book entirely made of lead. It was about four inches long and three wide, and had a cover and six leaves or sheets. The hinges and nails were also made of lead. The volume contained Egyptian gnostic figures and inscriptions in Greek and Etruscan characters.
In a temple in the Carian city of Cnidus, erected in honor of Hades and Persephone, about the fourth century before Christ, the women were in the habit of depositing thin sheets of lead on which were written the names of persons they hated, together With their misdeeds. They also inscribed on the lead tablets imprecations against those who had thus injured them. Many of these tablets were discovered in 1858 when excavations were made in the ruins of the temple. They are now in the British Museum.
It is not, however, certain that Job in the text refers to leaden tablets or leaves on which inscriptions were made. He may have alluded to the custom of first cutting letters in stone and then filling them up with molten lead. There are indications that some of the incised letters in Assyrian monuments were filled with metal. M. Botta states that the letters on the pavement slabs of Khorsabad give evidence of having been filled with copper. See Layard's Nineveh and Its Remains, vol. 2, p. 188.
3. Stone monuments. The law was originally written on tables of stone “with the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18). The second set of tables were written by Moses by Divine command (Ex. 34:4,28). Joshua copied the law on the stone altar at Mount Ebal (Josh. 8:32). This mode of recording important truths or events was very common in ancient times. Job desires that his sentiments should be thus engraved, that generations to come might read the record.
The some records of ancient Oriental nations, which modern discoveries have brought to light, are all illustrations of the custom which Job evidently had in mind. Many of these bear on Scripture facts and history, confirming and supplementing the sacred record. The most remarkable, in some respects, of any of these ancient monuments is the famous Moabite stone, the discovery of which in the year 1868 created such intense excitement among biblical scholars and antiquarians. This is the very oldest Semitic inscription of importance as yet discovered, and is the only one thus far found which reaches back to the age of the Jewish monarchy. It gives the Moabitish account of the conflict described in the 2 Kings 3.

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