Bar (015). — (1) A cross-beam, a bar which was passed from one side to the other through the rings of the several boards of the holy tabernacle, wliich were thus held together (Ex 2G-«'- 35" 30'"-, Nu 3^ 4^'). (2) A bolt or bar for shutting a door of a gate or house.
The bar was used principally at night time (Neh 7', Rev 21^), as it is at the present day, to keep the door closed. It was made of wood or iron (Is 45-), and was inserted into sockets in the gateposts or doorway of houses (Ovid, .-l^nor. i. G). The door could not be opened until tlie bar was removed. Chamber doors were sometimes barred as well as bolted (2 S 13"; Eurip. Orest. 154 6). The first mention of the use of bars with gates is in the account of the taking of the cities of 0<' king of Hashan by Moses (Dt 3'). Samson carried away the gates of Gaza, posts, bars, .and all (Jg 16'). In the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem in the time of Artaxerxes, both bars and bolts of the gates of the city are mentioned (Neh 3^'-).
In the Bible, bars are mentioned in connexion with city gates only, and not with reference to houses. In Jon 2° the term is used in a meta- phorical sense. — ' The bars of the earth ' (pictured as a house out of which Jonah is shut — Oxf. Ilcb. Lex.). The gates of Damascus, Jerusalem, and other walled cities in the East are closed at night and baiTed.
Bolt or lock (Ssyp, from the root Syj, to fasten with a bolt, or to bind sandals to the feet). — In Dt 33-' this word (in the form '^i';:;) is given as ' bars ' (RV) or ' shoes' (AV, RVm), KKtWpov, sera. The idea of binding and loosin" witli a key appears in Mt 16" ' I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.'
The bolt or lock is referred to in connexion with the doors both of city gates and of houses ; but in the two instances in which the Heb. word is ti"" 'lock ' in AV, it is given as ' bolt' in RV (Ca 5', Neh 3"-). It does not appear that city "ates and palaces which had both bars and bolts w ould require the bolt to be opened with a key, both because they were not opened from the outside, and because guards were present to protect them from being opened by unauthorized persons (Neh 3"- 7^).
The bolt was shot into a socket made to receive it in the threshold on the inside of a gate or door- way. In the Pompeian doorways two holes in the sill correspond to tlie two bolts of the leaves of the doors (Gell, Pompeiana, 2 ser. vol. i. p. 167); in doorways with a single leaf the bolt would shoot into a socket in the doorpost. In the Odyssey (i. 442, iv. 802, xxi. 6, 46-50) the door was drawn to with a silver ring and the bolt fastened with a thong ; to open the door from the outside the thong of the
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ring was loosed, and the ' well bent key ' (of brass witli an ivory handle) was put in, and by means of it the bolt was struck back. By degrees iraprove- menta were made in bolts until locks and keys of very advanced design came into existeuce, among the Greeks and Komans. In Jg 3^'- an account is given of a door which could be locked by means of a key from inside or outside. Ehud locked the doors of Eglon's summer parlour, and Eglon's servants, after waiting for their master to open the doors from the inside, took a key and opened them from the outside. In Ca 5*- " refer- ence is made to the hole in the door through which the hand was put in with the key in withdrawing the bolt ; tlie liandles of tlie lock (AV) or bolt (KV) are also mentioned. ' My beloved put in his liand by the hole in the door.' In Dt 33^ bars or bolts are spoken of as of iron and brass. Keference to the tpolting of an inner chamber is made in the account of Amnon and Tamar (2 S 13'"). Ancient Egyptian doors, witli two leaves, had central bolts and bars (Wilkinson, Anc. Eg. i. 15).
Key (nni:?, from the root nnp, ' open,' itXeit, clavis). This instrument to open a lock or withdraw a bolt is mentioned only once in its literal sense (Jg 3-"). In other instances the term is used liguralively (Is 22", Lk 11", Mt 16'") as a symbol to denote power and autliority delegated to a steward, chamberlain, or minister, ' And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder ; anil he shall open and none shall shut : and he shall shut and none shall open.' Merchants iind others at the i)resent day in Palestine and Egypt are accustomed to carry large keys of wood or iron over their shoulders, if too long to hang at the girdle. Thomson (Land and the Buolc, i. 493) mentions the enormous wooden ke3's u.sed in Palestine ; in some ca.ses almost a load to carrj'.