47 Bible Verses about Tools

Zillah gave birth to Tubal-cain, the smith (craftsman) and teacher of every artisan in instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

He also brought out the people who were there, and put them to [work with] the saws and sharp iron instruments and iron axes, and made them work at the brickkiln. And he did this to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all the men returned to Jerusalem.

He brought out the people who were in it, and put them [to work] with saws, iron picks, and axes. David dealt in this way with all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

“But the man who touches them
Must be armed with iron and the shaft of a spear,
And they are utterly burned and consumed by fire in their place.”

So he went with them; and when they came to the Jordan, they cut down [some of] the trees. But it happened that as one was cutting down a beam, the axe head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, “Oh no, my master! It was borrowed!”

as [for example] when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, but the iron head slips off the wooden handle and hits his companion and he dies—the offender may escape to one of these cities and live;

Now no blacksmith (metal-worker) could be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears.” So all [the men of] Israel went down to the Philistines, each to get his plowshare, pick, axe, or sickle sharpened. The fee [for sharpening] was a pim (two-thirds of a shekel) for the plowshares, the picks, the pitchforks, and the axes, and to straighten the goads (cattle prods).

So Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people with him; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand and cut down a branch from the trees, picked it up, and laid it on his shoulder. And he said to the people with him, “What you have seen me do, hurry and do just as I have done.”

“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its [fruit-bearing] trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged (destroyed) by you? Only the trees which you know are not fruit trees shall you destroy and cut down, so that you may build siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.

It seems as if one had lifted up
An axe in a forest of trees [to set a record of destruction].

And now all the carved work [of the meeting place]
They smash with hatchets and hammers.

And already the axe [of God’s judgment] is swinging toward the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Even now the axe [of God’s judgment] is swinging toward the root of the trees; so every tree that does not produce good fruit is being cut down and thrown into the fire.”

“The sound [of Egypt fleeing from the enemy] is like [the rustling of] an escaping serpent,
For her foes advance with a mighty army
And come against her like woodcutters with axes.

“They have cut down her forest,” says the Lord;
“Certainly it will no longer be found,
Because they (the invaders) are more numerous than locusts
And cannot be counted.

The carpenter stretches out a measuring line, he marks out the shape [of the idol] with red chalk; he works it with planes and outlines it with the compass; and he makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of man, that it may sit in a house.

then his master shall bring him to God [that is, to the judges who act in God’s name], then he shall bring him to the door or doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl (strong needle); and he shall serve him for life.

then take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall [willingly] be your servant always. Also you shall do the same for your maidservant.

For the customs and decrees of the peoples are [mere] delusion [exercises in futility];
It is only wood which one cuts from the forest [to make a god],
The work of the hands of the craftsman with the axe or cutting tool.

“They adorn the idol with silver and with gold;
They fasten it with hammers and nails
So that it will not fall apart.

“That with an iron stylus and [molten] lead
They were engraved in the rock forever!

“You shall also make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it, like the engravings of a signet, ‘Holy to the Lord.’

They made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote on it an inscription, like the engravings of a signet, “Holy to the Lord.”

The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus;
With a diamond point it is engraved upon the tablet of their heart
And on the horns of their altars.

So the craftsman encourages the goldsmith,
And he who smooths metal with the smith’s hammer encourages him who beats the anvil,
Saying of the soldering (welding), “That is good”;
And he fastens the idol with nails,
So that it will not totter nor be moved.

And he took the gold from their hands, and fashioned it with an engraving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”

The ironsmith shapes iron and uses a chisel and works it over the coals. He forms the [idol’s] core with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He also becomes hungry and his strength fails; he drinks no water and grows tired.

Silver that has been beaten [into plates] is brought from Tarshish,
And gold from Uphaz,
The work of the craftsman and of the hand of the goldsmith;
Violet and purple are their clothing;
They are all the work of skilled men.

While it was being built, the house was built of stone prepared and finished (precut) at the quarry, and no hammer, axe, or iron tool of any kind was heard in the house while it was under construction.

All these were of expensive stones, of stone cut according to measure, sawed with saws, inside and outside; even from the foundation to the coping, and from the outside to the great courtyard.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you smashed [when you learned of Israel’s idolatry].

So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut out two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.

‘What business do you have here?
And whom do you have here,
That you have hewn out a tomb here for yourself,
You who hew a sepulcher on the height,
You who carve a resting place for yourself in the rock?

“Is not My word like fire [that consumes all that cannot endure the test]?” says the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks the [most stubborn] rock [in pieces]?

If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you use a chisel on it, you will profane it.

There you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them.

just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones on which no one has wielded an iron tool; and they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord, and sacrificed peace offerings.

And He will judge between the nations,
And will mediate [disputes] for many peoples;
And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not lift up the sword against nation,
And never again will they learn war.

And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for strong and distant nations.
Then they shall hammer their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks [so that the implements of war may become the tools of agriculture];
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Nor shall they ever again train for war.

Beat your plowshares into swords
And your pruning hooks into spears;
Let the weak say, “I am strong!”

For before the harvest, when the blossom is over
And the flower becomes a ripening grape,
He will cut off the sprigs [without buds] with pruning knives,
And [He will] remove and cut away the spreading branches.

Also the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork.

“I will winnow (sort, separate) them with a winnowing fork
At the gates of the land;
I will deprive them of children, I will destroy My people;
They did not repent and turn from their [evil] ways.

His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear out His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat (believers) into His barn (kingdom), but He will burn up the chaff (the unrepentant) with unquenchable fire.”

His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat (believers) into His barn (kingdom); but He will burn up the chaff (the unrepentant) with unquenchable fire.”

Is the axe able to lift itself over the one who chops with it?
Is the saw able to magnify itself over the one who wields it?
That would be like a club moving those who lift it,
Or like a staff raising him who is not [made of] wood [like itself]!

Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger [against Israel],
The staff in whose hand is My indignation and fury [against Israel’s disobedience]!

“How the hammer of the whole earth
Is crushed and broken!
How Babylon has become
A horror [of desolation] among the nations!