so when they wrote on tables of wood covered with wax, they used a kind of bodkin made of iron, brass, or bone;See Gill on "Hab 2:2"; and when upon the rind and leaves of trees, and on papyrus and parchment, they made use of reeds, particularly the Egyptian calamus or reed; and the word here is translated calamus or reed by the Targum, Septuagint, and all the Oriental versions.
Now as the Jews had occasion frequently to copy out the book of the law, and other writings of theirs, their scribes, at least some of them, were very expert and dexterous at it; but whether the art of "shorthand" was to any degree in use among them is not certain, as it was in later times among the Romans, when they used marks, signs, and abbreviations, which seems to have laid the foundation of the above art, and had its rise, as is said, from Cicero himself, though some ascribe it to Mecaenas : and in Martial's time it was brought to such perfection, that, according to him, the hand could write swifter than a man could speak .
vxr "ebullit", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; so Ainsworth. "Eructavit", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Munster. So the Targum, Tigurine version, Gejerus, & Michaelis. Vid. Kimchi Sepher Shorash.
rad. je. Origin. l. 6. c. 13. Vid. Kipping. Antiqu. Roman. l. 2. c. 4. p. 554. "Currant verba licet, manus est velociter illis; nondum lingua suum, dextra peregit opus", Martial. Epigr. l. 14. ep. 189.
of the origin of shorthand with the Romans, and among us, with other curious things concerning writing, and the matter and instruments of it, see a learned treatise of Mr. Massey's, called, "The Origin and Progress of Letters", p.
144.