That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!
Ver. 24. That they were graven with an iron pen, &c.] That my words were not only scripta sed sculpta, written, but graven in a rock, as the laws of various nations were cut in brass or marble; and as monuments and epitaphs are graven on tombs for remembrance of those that are dead.
And lead] Plumbo per sulcos infuso, saith Junius, the cuts of the letters in marble being filled with lead, that they might be the more legible and durable.
In the rock] In marble cut out of the rock. Golden words they are indeed that here follow, and well worthy to be written in letters of gold. In the Life of Zisca (that warlike Bohemian) it is recorded, that in the famous monastery called the king's court, a mile from Prague, in the walls thereof the whole Bible was most exquisitely engraven in letters of gold (Clarke's Lives).
For ever!] To last longer than the world lasteth. Those bloody tyrants of the primitive times made account they had made sure work in rooting out true religion, when they sounded the triumph beforehand, and engraved the victory upon pillars of marble in these bubbles of words: Nomine Christianorum deleto qui Remp. evertebant, &c. The name of the Christians I have erased who … But Christ shall reign, and the Church shall stand upon his right hand as a queen in gold of Ophir, Psalms 45:9, when all earthly greatness shall lie in the dust. "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever," Psalms 45:6; and there shall be a new sucession of saints to all perpetuity. Psalms 72:17, "His name shall endure for ever; his name shall be continued (Heb. childed) as long as the sun," as long as the world, as long as the word of our God, which, according to Job's wish here, shall stand for ever, Isaiah 40:8. But what meaneth the Vulgate translation here by this insignificant word Celte? Celte vox est nihili (Merc.). And why should Hugo seek to solve the matter, by telling us that celtis is a tool wherewith letters or pictures are cut in the flint? Whereupon, Vide, quaeso, mi Lector, saith Brentius, See, I pray thee, good reader, how oddly they interpret Scripture that lack learning; for neither is celte such a tool, nor can it be celte for certe, since the Hebrew word lagnad doth not signify surely, but for ever.