Key

KEY. There is frequent mention of Keys in Scripture, as well in a litteral and natural, as in a figurative and moral Sense. The Keys of the Ancients in general were very different from ours; because their Doors and Trunks were closed generally with Bands, and the Key served only to loose or fasten these Bands in a certain artificial Manner. The Keys which are still at this Day used in the East are very unlike ours. Chardin says, that a Lock among the Eastern People is like a little Harrow, which enters half way into a wooden Staple, and the Key is a wooden Handle with Points at the End of it, which are pushed into the Staple, and so raise this little Harrow. See likewise Dandini’s Voyage to Mount Libanus, Ch. 14. and our Dissertation upon the Dwellings of the ancient Hebrews, before our Comment on the Book of Judges.

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