24. It is uncertain whether this v. referred to inscriptions on one, or on two (cp. 𝔖V) different materials, though H is most naturally taken as referring to but one, and this also seems most effective; in this case the v. has been understood (since Rashi) to refer to engraving with an iron stylus (cp. Jer 17:1) in the rock, and then, for greater clearness and lastingness, filling in the letters with lead. If two materials are referred to, it is best, adopting two slight emendations (see phil. n.), tc render, That with an iron stylus on lead, Or for ever in the rock they were graven. The climax is then reached in three stages: let my assertions of innocence be perpetuated in a written scroll, or, in what is more enduring, on lead (en tablets), or, in what is more enduring still, immovable also, and so free from risk of being lost, and conspicuous too—in the rock. Is the poet thinking of inscriptions cut in the rocks over tombs? Inscribed leaden tablets were much used in antiquity (Paus. ix. 31:4; Pliny, H.N. 13. 669), especially for imprecations (cp. Tac. Ann. ii. 69, “nomen Germanici plumbeis tabulis insculptum”), and many such tablets have been discovered, including one containing a Phœnician inscription from Carthage of about the 3rd or 2nd cent. B.C.; see Wünsch, Defixionum tabellæ Atticæ (cp. Bliss, Macalister, and Wünsch, Excavations in Palestine, pp. 185–187; Cooke, NSI, No. 50, and the literature there cited).