ENGRAVING. The following are the terms by which this art is indicated in the Hebrew Scrip tures-(t), ; ppr) , (3), trim; (4), or Inn (5), 50n; (6), inn ; rthpp ; (s), There is much indistinctness in the terms of the ancient art of the Jews, arising from the fact, that one and the same artisan combined, in skill and practice, many branches, which the modern principle of ` division of labour' has now assigned to different pursuits. Thus Aholiab was not only ` an engraver,' but also ` a cunning workman' in general art, ' and an embroiderer in blue, and in purple and in scarlet and fine linen' (Exod. xxxviii. 23). In like manner Bezaleel is described as accomplished in all manner of workmanship ; and to devise curious works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in the cutting of stones to set them, and in carving of wood, to make any manner of cunning work' (Exod. xxxv. 31-33). These numerous gifts they both possessed and prac tised themselves, and imparted to others ; so that they formed an early school of art to supply the demand created by the institution of the Mosaic ritual, the members of which school were as com prehensive in their attainments as their great teachers (Exod. xxxv. 34 ; xxxvi. i, 2). The same combination of arts seems to have characterized the later school, which was formed tinder the auspices of David, when preparing for the erection of the temple (1 Chron. xxii. 15 ; xxviii. 21). Many of these artificers were Phoenicians, whom the king had invited to his new capital (2 Sam. v. u ; Chron. xiv. 1). In the next reign, Hiram, to whose genius the temple of Solomon owed much of the beauty of its architectural details, as well as its sacred vessels (1 Kings vii. 45-45), was a native of Tyre, the son of a Tyrian artificer by an Israelite mother. This man's skill was again as compre hensive as that of his great predecessors (v. 14). We are not surprised, therefore, to find extreme indefiniteness in the terms with which our article is surmounted. No. (1), although once in the A. V. (Job xix. 24) translated `graven' (with an un doubted reference to the ancient art of engraving), is generally used to indicate the rougher work of hewing stone or wood, in quarry or forest. In
Prov. ix. 1, indeed, it is applied to the finer art of hewing or fashioning pillars; but its usual objec tives of nic (' cistern, Jer. ii. 13), imp ; chre,' Is. xxii. 16), (` winepress,' Is. v. 2), prove that nV1-1 has to do with rougher operations than those which fall under our idea of ` engraving.' (But see below, under (8), tz1).) This word is con trasted with No. (4) in our list, nil (or, as it once occurs, nnn in Exod. xxxii. 16), which is used to describe ` engraving,' in Jer. xvii. 1. In Gen. IN. 22 the participial derivative of this root is em ployed in the description of Tubal-cain, the Biblical progenitor of all artificers of the kind indicated in this article. But it is less in the verbal forms, than in the noun ciln, that this word expresses the art before us. As a noun it occurs more than thirty times ; and is rendered variously in A. V. (en graver, craftsman, smith, artificer, etc.) Though it indicates artistic work by fine instruments, in metal, wood, and stone, and is thus opposed to the rougher operations of SIR, it yet includes other usages, which remove it from the specific sense of our art. (Thus, while with alone, Exod.
xxviii. i 1, it may well refer to the fine work of the • engraver in stone, yet in the phrase pt: literally, hewers of the stone of the wall, 2 Sam. v. ; or more simply n+r? [workers of wall], Chron. xiv. 1, it can hardly describe a higher art than what is attributed to it in A. V.-that of the ordinary ` mason ;' similarly with nw, timber, it points to the work of the i Chron. xiv. s, etc. ; and with Spa iron to that of the `smith' or iron-founder.) The prevalent idea, however, of ci-r; is the subtle work of the finer arts ; and with this well agree such passages as Prov. vi. IS, where the word describes the ` heart that deviseth wicked imaginations,' and I Sam. xxiii. 9, where it is pre dicated of Saul, `secretlypractising mischief' [Hiph.