Speak unto the children of Israel and take one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers.
The fifteenth word was rod—used as a staff in this case but undoubtedly used as a term of measurement in the script.
From then on my fingers flew through the pages of the Book. “Aned,” the very first word in the column, represented—finding the alphabetical position of each letter—the numbers 1-14-5-4. It was a simple matter to look up the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the fourteenth chapter, the fifth verse, and the fourth word. The verse in this case began:
“And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him.”
The fourth word of the verse was fourteenth—and the first word of the finished script.
It was easy to find the other words. I worked them all out in fifteen minutes. “Aqcd,” the third in the column, proved to be the first, seventeenth, third, and fourth letters of the alphabet, respectively, and 1-17-3-4 meant first book, seventeenth chapter, third verse, fourth word, as plain as could be. The word proved to be “on.” Swiftly I went down the list. And at last I had the whole column translated:
fourteen
rod
on
wall
three
rod
straight
right
fastened
white
rock
Writing it out, I had:
Fourteen rod on wall three rod straight right fastened white rock.
In clearer language, it meant simply and unmistakably, that to find the missing object—unquestionably Jason’s treasure—go fourteen rods out on the natural rock wall, turn straight right into the lagoon for three rods, and there I would find it—fastened to a white rock.