the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Pen
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia
or An instrument for writing. The older expressions for "writing," which later occur as archaisms in lofty speech, mean "to cut in," "to scratch" ("ḥaḳaḳ," "ḥaraá¹," "ḥarat," "ḥarash"). There is no mention, therefore, of pens, but of iron styles ("'eá¹ barzel"âJeremiah 17:1; Job 19:24; "ḥereá¹"âExodus 32:4; Jeremiah 17:1). For writing material stone was used, as for the tables of the Decalogue; Ezekiel, in Babylonia, speaks of tiles (4:1), Jeremiah of writing in the earth (17:13). Often tablets covered with wax were used; sometimes also metal strips (comp. Exodus 28:36, 39:30). The characters were always cut into this material by means of the style. It is difficult to determine the antiquity of writing with colored matter, and, therefore, with a pen. Ink is mentioned only once, in Jeremiah 36:18, but that method of writing is certainly much older. If it is true that the word "katab" originally meant writing with colored matter (comp. "katam" = "to cover something"), then the custom of writing with a pen would be as old as the word "katab." This is very probable since the art of writing with colors was known in Egypt long before Israel settled in Palestine. That writing, however, was not customary in Palestine in the fifteenth pre-Christian century, but that there, as in Babylon, clay tablets were used, even in every-day life, is shown by the discoveries in Tell el-Amarna and at Seilun in Palestine. See Jew. Encyc. 8:306, s. MANUSCRIPTS.
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Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'Pen'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/p/pen.html. 1901.
