Penknife

The penknife appears once in the text, as the instrument by which a king destroys a prophetic scroll.

The King's Penknife in Jeremiah 36

When Jehudi reads Jeremiah's scroll aloud before [the king] in the winter house, the king's response is to cut it apart and burn it column by column: "And it came to pass, when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, that [the king] cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier" (Jer 36:23). The penknife — a small blade typically used by scribes to trim and shape writing reeds and to scrape parchment — is here turned against the written word itself, the implement of the scribal trade now wielded as a tool of suppression against Yahweh's prophet.