Key

The key appears in Scripture both as a literal door-instrument and as a figure for delegated authority over a household, a body of knowledge, or an unseen domain. The references fall under three headings: a narrative occurrence at the door of Eglon's upper room, a cluster of authority-passages (Eliakim and the risen Christ), and a single figurative woe pronounced over the lawyers. The prophetic and apocalyptic uses share a recurring grammar — the key is named, a holder is named, and a paired opens-and-shuts authority follows.

The Key as Door-Instrument

The earliest occurrence is plain household furniture. After Ehud has slain Eglon and slipped out, the king's servants stand outside the locked upper room: "And they tarried until they were ashamed; and saw that he didn't open the doors of the upper room: therefore they took the key, and opened [them], and saw that their lord had fallen down dead on the earth" (Jud 3:25). The key here is the ordinary unlocking-instrument of the upper-room door, deployed only after the long delay of the servants' embarrassment. The figurative weight of every later key-passage is built on this concrete background: a key is what opens what is shut, in the hand of the one entitled to use it.

The Key of the House of David

In Isaiah's oracle against Shebna, Yahweh announces the deposition of the over-the-house steward and the elevation of Eliakim son of Hilkiah in his place. The transfer of office is sealed by a key: "And the key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder; and he will open, and none will shut; and he will shut, and none will open" (Isa 22:22). The placing-act is Yahweh's own; the key is borne on the shoulder rather than carried in the hand, exhibiting it as an insignia of office; and the paired clauses describe an opening-and-shutting authority over the Davidic household whose decisions stand. The key is the office-conferring access-instrument over that household, vested by Yahweh in the divinely-installed steward.

The Apocalypse takes up the same key by name. To the church at Philadelphia the speaker is introduced as "he who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and none will shut, and who shuts and none opens" (Re 3:7). The Davidic key has passed from the over-the-house steward to the holy-and-true Christ; the paired function-clauses are repeated almost verbatim; and the holder's opening and shutting once again stands without rival.

The Keys of Death and Hades

A second possession-claim of the risen Christ stands in Revelation's opening vision. The Living one declares: "and I became dead, and look, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Re 1:18). The keyed-domains here are doubled — death and the underworld — and the possessor is identified by his own death-and-resurrection. The keys are exhibited as twin-domain unlocking-instruments held by the one who has himself passed through the locked door.

The Key of the Abyss

Two further apocalyptic keys belong to the abyss rather than to the household of David or the realm of the dead. Under the fifth trumpet a fallen heavenly figure receives one: "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven fallen to the earth: and there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss" (Re 9:1). The grant-verb is a passive giving — the key is handed to the fallen star — and the immediate effect in the following verses is the opening of the abyss-pit.

A second abyss-key, paired with a chain, is in the hand of a heaven-sent angel: "And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand" (Re 20:1). The holding-clause predicates possession, the paired instrument is a great chain, and the ensuing acts in the next verses are a dragon-binding and abyss-casting. The same abyss-door appears in both scenes, but the key is in different hands and is used to opposite effect: in Re 9 to release, in Re 20 to confine.

The Key of Knowledge

The figurative use comes in the woe pronounced upon the lawyers: "Woe to you⁺ lawyers! For you⁺ took away the key of knowledge: you⁺ didn't enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you⁺ hindered" (Lu 11:52). The keyed-domain here is not a household, a domain of the dead, or an abyss, but knowledge itself; and the verb is one of removal rather than possession. The lawyers are charged with having carried off the unlocking-instrument that gives access to knowledge, with the double effect of their own non-entry and the hindering of those who were entering. Here the key is a figure for the access-granting interpretation of Scripture, and the indictment is that this access has been withheld.