SCRABBLE

skrab'-l: Occurs only in 1 Samuel 21:13, as the translation of tawah: "David .... feigned himself mad and scrabbled on the doors of the gate." "To scrabble" (modern English "scrawl") is here to make unmeaning marks; tawah means "to make a mark" from taw, "a mark," especially as a cross (Ezekiel 9:4), a signature (Job 31:35, see the Revised Version (British and American)), the name of the Hebrew letter taw ("t") originally made in the form of a cross; the Revised Version margin has "made marks"; but Septuagint has tumpanizo, "to beat as a drum," which the Vulgate, Ewald, Driver and others follow ("beat upon" or "drummed on the doors of the city," which seems more probable).

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.