[ 7 2 4 3 
ing feems to have fuffered more from the injuries of 
time, than moft of the others, which I have here been 
endeavouriug to explain. 
12. The date of this infcription falls in with the 
year of Seleucus 5 65 , which nearly coincides with the 
zffth of Christ, about two years after Valerian was 
fixed upon the imperial throne. 
13. With regard to the third infcription, I fhall 
firft beg leave to remark, that in the age, in which 
it was written, the Palmyrenes feem to have been 
extremely fond of the letter Vau. This may 
be clearly evinced from the words pTTl and ’NT, 
written two hundred years afterwards pHVT? and ”H1» 
or KTI\ which appear towards the clofe of the in- 
fcription. Nor will this be any matter of furprize, 
when it is confidered, that the Jews, whofe language 
was then the Syriac, fometimes ufed the epenthe- 
tic Vau y or a letter equivalent to it, a little before 
the year in which our infcription was drawn ; as 
we may infer from the words ELOI, ELOI, in- 
ftead of the Hebrew ELI, ELI, fpoken by our Sa- 
viour upon the crofs, juft before he expired. That 
the mutilated letter beginning the eighth line of this 
infcription was originally an Aleph , and that the 
word to which it belongs is to be deduced from the 
root fQD, or rPSP, notwithftanding the epenthetic tl, 
from whence, in the conjugation Jlpkely is formed 
JT 3 DN, or rvsrjDN, if the natural and genuine fenfe 
of the pafiage be duly attended to, cannot, I think, 
be well denied ( a ). 
(a) Pafor. Ltxic. p. 652. Ed. Schoettgen. Lipfiae, 1 717. Schind. 
ubi fup. p. 54. Buxtorf. Gram. Cbald. et Syr. p. 36. Bafilese, 1615. 
13. The 
