583. Writing on Rods

Narrator: Chris Genthree
 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 6
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Ezekiel 37:2020And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. (Ezekiel 37:20). The sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
We find the practice of writing on rods alluded to as early as the time of Moses. See Numbers 17:22Speak unto the children of Israel, and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers, of all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods: write thou every man's name upon his rod. (Numbers 17:2). A similar practice was known among the Greeks. The laws of Solon, which were preserved at Athens, were written on billets of wood called axones. These were of a square or pyramidal form, and made to turn on an axis. The northern nations and the ancient Britons also wrote on sticks. Some of these were square and some three sided, and each side contained one line. These sticks were sometimes set in a framework which was called Peithynen, or the Elucidator. At one end of each stick was a knob projecting beyond the frame. By means of these knobs the sticks could be turned and the successive lines read. “Stick almanacs” were used in England almost to the fourteenth century. Some were large, and hung up on one side of the mantel-piece; while others were small enough to be carried in the pocket.