KEY in a moral Sense has many Significations. For Example, Isai. xxii. 22. And the Key of the House of David will I lay upon his Shoulders. So he shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open. He shall be grand Master and principal Officer of his Prince’s House. He shall open and shut with an intire Authority, without any one’s being able to open what he shall shut, or shut what he shall open. Thus Jesus Christ gives St. Peter the principal Matth. xvi. 19.Authority in his Church: He gives him the Key of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Power of binding and loosing, that is to say, of opening and shutting; for this frequently consisted only as we have said, in tying and untying. Isaiah remarks, that Eliakim should wear his Key upon his Shoulder, as a Mark of Distinction. These Keys were of Wood, and pretty long and large, as they are at present in the East. Callimachus says, that Ceres carried a Key upon her Shoulder1.
Luke xi. 52.Jesus Christ reproaches the Scribes and
ἐλέφαντος ἐπῆεν. Pharisees with having taken the Key of Knowledge, and neither entring themselves nor suffering others to enter into the Kingdom of God; that is to say, with reading and studying the Scriptures, without making any Advantage of them themselves, and without discovering to others the Truth, which in some Sort they held captive in Unrighteousness.
Lastly Jesus Christ in the Revelations says, that he has the Key of Death and Hell, that is to say, that it is in his Power to bring any one to the Grave, or, if he pleases, to rescue any one from it; to give Life or Death. And in another Place St. John applies to him, what Isaiah said of Eliakim, that he has the Key of David’s House, that he shuts and no one can open; that he opens, and no one can shut. Which is very certain and strictly true when spoken of Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of Life and Death, of eternal Destruction or Salvation. The Rabbins say, that God hath reserved to himself four Sorts of Keys, with which he hath entrusted no one, not even the Angels; the Key of Rain, the Key of the Grave, the Key of Fruitfulness, and the Key of Barrenness.
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Footnotes
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Translators’ note. This Custom of carrying Keys upon Shoulders is very strange to us. The Ancients had their Keys made very large, and in the Form of a Sickle, and the Weight and Shape of them was such, that they could no otherwise be carried conveniently, but as we see our Reapers carry their Sickles. Homer having said, that Penelope took several Things out of her Store-room, adds, Odyss. 21. Whereby he seems to represent, that it required some Strength to lift up. For the same Reason therefore they were called Καλωμαδία. See Huet. Demonstr. Evangel. Prop. ix. c. cv. ↩