MONUMENT. A memorial stone or tomb.

1. Memorial stone. In four passages RSV tr. יָד, H3338, (usually meaning “hand”) as “monument,” where KJV has “place,” except for “dominion” in 1 Chronicles 18:3 and Jeremiah 34:1. Saul set up a memorial after his victory over the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:12). Hadadezer planned to set up a memorial at the Euphrates (1 Chron 18:3). Absalom set up a pillar as a memorial for himself (2 Sam 18:18; not the “Absalom’s monument” in the Kidron Valley, which was built in the 1st cent. b.c.). Similarly Mesha of Moab and Egyptian, Assyrian, and Syrian kings set up steles with inscrs. boasting of their accomplishments. In Isaiah 56:5 God promises to pious eunuchs a memorial, prob. in the form of a stone in the Temple. In Canaanite sanctuaries steles, some of them memorials, have been found, including one at Hazor on which two arms with upraised hands are carved. A hand is carved also on many Carthaginian funerary steles.

2. Tomb. In 2 Kings 23:17 the tomb of a prophet is called a “monument” (so RSV; KJV “title”; Heb. צִיּ֣וּן). The one occurrence of “monuments” in KJV is for נְצוּרִ֖ים (Isa 65:4; RSV “secret places”). Christ calls the tombs of the prophets “monuments” (RSV, Matt 23:29; KJV “sepulchres”; Gr. τάφους).

Bibliography M. Delcor, “Two Special Meanings of the Word יָד, H3338, in Biblical Hebrew,” JSS, XII (1967), 230-240.