Translation,
1. [This is the excavation, and this was the manner of the excavation, while they lifted up
2. the pick each to his neighbour, and while three cubits [of rock remained] the voice of one cal 3. led to his fellow-workman, for there was excess of rock to the right and to the west
4. of the excavation they struck through the cutting, each meeting his fellow, pick upon pick, and flowed
5. the waters from the spring to the pool through the space of a thousand cubits, and. . .
. . . . cubit was the height of the rock over the head of the excavation. . . ].
Analysis.
Line 1.—I suppose the inscription to begin with the demonstrative pronoun זה this Major Conder supplies the article ה, Professor Sayce suggests the exclamation הן behold!
נקבה excavation, tunnel. Of rare occurrence in the Old Testament in this sense. נקב Ezek. viii, 13, means a musical pipe.
The root נקב perforare, and the noun נקבה fœmina, are common.
וזה and this, the pronoun with ו prefixed.
היה was, a verbal root of common occurrence.
דבר נקבה-This phrase appears to mean manner or method of the excavation, i.e., the way in which the work was carried out. דבר occurs Deut. XV, 2, in the sense of manner, method. "At the end of seven years thou shalt make a release, and this is the manner of the release," וזה דבר השמטה
According to Gesenius the primary idea of the root is, to arrange, set in order. Hence speech as an orderly arrangement of words, and in the later Hebrew דברים chronicles, i.e., facts set forth in order of time—Psalm cx, 4, Thou art a priest for ever after the order, manner of Melchizedek, על־דברתי מלכיצדק—LXX, προσταγμα, ταξις.
בעור while עלו they lifted up. Between בעוד and עלו we must supply a word meaning "excavators" or "workmen." The text is broken at this place, עלו from עלה to be raised high, lifted up in the hand. Common in Old Testament.
Line 2.—הגרזון the pick. See Deut. xix, 5; Isa. x, 15.—LXX, ὰξἰνη—אש each, each one, a shortened form of איש.
אל to. רעו his fellow-workman. רע with the pronoun. So English workmen speak of their "mates," their companions in labour. ובעור and while, שלש three, אמה cubit. The text being here imperfect we
