" be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name, shall they be according to the twelve tribes *[1]." Which is plainly, You shall not write in the way used till this day, for it leads the people into idolatry ; you shall not type Judah by a lion, Zebulun by a ship, lssachar by an ass couching between two burdens; but, instead of writing by pictures, you shall take the other known hand, the
merchants writing, which signifies sounds, not things; write the names Judah, Zebulun, lssachar, in the letters, such as the merchants use upon their signets. And, on Aaron's breast-plate of pure gold, was to be written, in the same alphabet, like the engravings of a signet, holiness to the lord †[2].
These signets, of the remotest antiquity in the East, are worn still upon every man's hand to this day, having the name of the person that wears them, or some sentence upon it always religious. The Greeks, after the Egyptians, continued the other method, and described figures upon their signet; the use of both has been always common in Britain.
We find afterwards, that, in place of stone or gold, for greater convenience Moses wrote in a book, "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished; ‡[3]" —
Although, then, Moses certainly did not invent either, or any character, it is probable that he made two, perhaps more, alterations in the Ethiopic alphabet as it then stood,
- Exod. chap. xxviii. ver. 21. † Exod. chap. xxviii. ver. 36. ‡ Deut. chap. xxxi. ver. 24.
