Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Samuel 13:21

Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the colters, and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads.

21. Yet they had a file ] So the Targum and some Rabbinic commentators. If the rendering is correct, the meaning will be that for the ordinary sharpening of tools they had files, but for any forging work they had to go to the Philistines. But the best rendering appears to be either, “When the edges, &c. were blunt:” or that of the Vulgate, “So the edges of the mattocks used to be blunt.” The result of the necessity of going so far to get their tools repaired was that they got into a very unserviceable condition. The words, “and to set (i.e. sharpen or point) the goad” must be taken as depending on “the Israelites went down to the Philistines,” the intervening words being regarded as a parenthesis.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verse 21. Yet they had a file] The Hebrew petsirah, from patsar, to rub hard, is translated very differently by the versions and by critics. Our translation may be as likely as any: they permitted them the use of files, (I believe the word means grindstone), to restore the blunted edges of their tridents axes, and goads.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

So the sense is, They allowed them some small helps to make their mattocks, and in some sort to serve their present use. But these words may be otherwise translated, and are so by some learned, both ancient and modern, translators: thus, Therefore the mouths or edges of the mattocks a coulters, &. were dull or blunt. Or rather thus, When (Heb. and put for when, as the particle and is sometimes rendered, as Mar 15:25) the mouths or edges of the mattocks, &c. were blunt. So this passage very well agrees both with the foregoing and following words; and the whole sense of the place is entirely thus, They went to the Philistines to sharpen their shares, and mattocks, and coulters, and axes, when they were blunt, and (which was more strange, they were forced to go to them even)

to sharpen their goads.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

21. Yet they had a fileas akind of privilege, for the purpose of sharpening sundry smallerutensils of husbandry.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for the axes,…. Those that would not go to the Philistines, or were not able, or thought it too much trouble, these kept files by them to sharpen those several instruments with upon occasion; though the words are by some rendered in connection with the preceding, to this sense, that they went to the Philistines to sharpen them, when the mouths, or edges, of the mattocks, coulters, c. were dull or “blunt” i; and so needed sharpening; and even

to sharpen the goads; with which they pricked and pushed on the oxen in ploughing, when sluggish and remiss.

(The word for “file” in the verse is “pim”, and occurs only here in the Hebrew scriptures. It is not used elsewhere in other Hebrew writings. Therefore the translators of the 1611 Authorised Version had only the root derivation to deduce what the word meant. Literally, it means “a file with mouths”. However, recently archaeologists have found a stone inscribed with this word. Also they found a stone inscribed with the word “shekel”. Hence they deduced that the word was really a weight of measure equal to about one third of a shekel. Newer translations usually translate this as “the charge was a third of a shekel …”, hence removing the obvious contradiction between this verse and the preceding one. Editor.)

i “retusae itaque erant acies vomerum”, V. L. “quandoquidem acies cultrorum aratri”, &c. “obtusae erant”, Tigurine version.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(21) Yet they had a file for the mattocks . . .This translation, the sense of which is not very clear, is supported by the Targum and by many of the great Hebrew commentatorsRashi, for instance. Gesenius and the majority of modern scholars, however, render the word in the original translated file (ptsirah) by bluntness. The passage then would run: And there was bluntness (or dulness) of edge to the mattocks; or, so that bluntness of the edges occurred to the mattocks. The forks were probably an instrument with three prongs, like our trident.

And to sharpen the goads.The words from and there was bluntness, &c. (English Version, they had a file), down to axes, form a parenthesis.

This parenthesis indicates that the result of the burthensome necessity of going to the Philistines was that many tools became useless by dulness, so that even these poorer sort of arms did the Israelites not much service at the breaking out of the war.Bunsen.
The LXX. read this 21st verse with considerable changes: And the vintage was ready to be gathered, and the tools were three shekels to the tooth to sharpen], and to the axe and to the scythe there was the same rate (or, as the Greek has been rendered, tools cost three shekels apiece [to sharpen]).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

21. A file Or, as the margin, a file with mouths. So the Rabbins and other interpreters have understood the Hebrew words, . But the words can hardly mean a sharpening tool. The root, , means to notch, to indent; and , applied to the edges of instruments for cutting, most naturally means indentation in the sense of dulling. Thus this verse tells us the result of the lack of smiths in Israel: the agricultural instruments became nicked and dull. Keil supposes that the final in should be connected with the next word as the article, and he translates the verse thus: So that bluntness of the edges occurred in the edge tools, and the plough-shares, and the trident, and the axes, and the setting of the goad.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments