Thoughts on #Hebrew of Job 19.23–24 welcome.
How do you ‘inscribe/engrave’ (חקק) in a ‘book’ (ספר)?
You could try ספר = ‘tablet’ (per Ugar. /spr/).
An alt. is to read בספר in light of בעט ברזל (per Ugar. /spr/ = Akk. /siparru/ = ‘bronze’).
But did people engrave with bronze?
How do you ‘inscribe/engrave’ (חקק) in a ‘book’ (ספר)?
You could try ספר = ‘tablet’ (per Ugar. /spr/).
An alt. is to read בספר in light of בעט ברזל (per Ugar. /spr/ = Akk. /siparru/ = ‘bronze’).
But did people engrave with bronze?
A point in favour of the latter option might be that, everywhere else in Job, mentions of ‘iron’ have a parallel which mentions either copper or bronze (20.24, 28.2, 40.18, 41.27).
P.S. Arabic /ṣufr/ is also associated with copper and bronze, though I suspect that’s by virtue of association with ‘yellow’ (/ṣufār/ cp. modern /asfar/) rather than a cognate of ספר. Grateful for clarification if anyone has thoughts (@KoineGreek_com?).
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