Axe
Axe
Several instruments of this description are so discriminated in Scripture as to show that the Hebrews had them of different forms and for various uses.
(1.) , garzen’ (so called from chopping), which occurs in Deu 19:5; Deu 20:19; 1Ki 6:7; Isa 10:15; , Mat 3:10; Luk 3:9; corresponding to the Lat. securis). From these passages it appears that this kind was employed in felling trees (comp. Isa 10:34), and in hewing large timber for building. The conjecture of Gesenius, that in 1Ki 5:7, it denotes the axe of a stone-mason, is by no means conclusive. The first text supposes a case of the head slipping from the helve in felling a tree (comp. 2Ki 6:5). This would suggest that it was shaped like fig. 3, which is just the same instrument as our common hatchet, and appears to have been applied by the ancient Egyptians to the same general use as with us. The reader will observe the contrivance in all the others (wanting in this) of fastening the head to the haft by thongs.
(2.) , madtsad’ (a hewing instrument), which occurs only in Isa 44:12 (where it is rendered tongs) and Jer 10:3. From the latter of these passages it appears to have been a lighter instrument than the preceding, or a kind of adze, used for fashioning or carving wood into shape; it was probably, therefore, like figs. 4 to 7, which the Egyptians employed for this purpose. Other texts of Scripture represent such implements as being employed in carving images, the use to which the prophets refer. The differences of form and size, as indicated in the figures, appear to have been determined with reference to light or heavy work. The passage in Isaiah, however, as it refers to the blacksmith’s operations at the forge, may possibly designate some kind of chisel.
(3.) , kardom’ (from its sharpness); this is the commonest name for an axe or hatchet. It is of this which we read in Jdg 9:48; Psa 74:5; 1Sa 13:20-21; Jer 46:22. It appears to have been more exclusively employed than the garzen for felling trees, and had therefore probably a heavier head. In one of the Egyptian sculptures the inhabitants of Lebanon are represented as felling pine-trees with axes like fig. 1. SEE LEBANON. As the one used by the Egyptians for the same purpose was also of this shape, there is little doubt that it was also in use among the Hebrews.
(4.) The term , che’reb (destroyer), usually a sword, is used of other cutting instruments, as a knife (Jos 5:2), or razor (Eze 6:1), or a tool for hewing or dressing stones (Exo 20:25), and is once rendered axe (Eze 26:9), and there may probably mean a heavy cutlass, like fig. 2, or perhaps battle-axe, or possibly even pick-axe, as it is there used to denote a weapon for destroying buildings.
(5.) A similar instrument, , kashshil’ (feller), is once spoken of (Psa 74:6) as a battle-axe. It also occurs in the Targum (Jer 46:22) in the sense of broad-axe.
(6.) Iron implements of severe labor, , magzerah’ (axe, 2Sa 12:31), and , megerah’ (axe, 2Ch 20:3; also in the same verse more properly saw, and in 2Sa 12:31; 1Ki 7:9), were used by David in the massacre of the inhabitants of Rabbah, but their form cannot be made out. SEE SAW.
(7.) The word barzel’, rendered axe-head in 2Ki 6:5, is literally Iron; but, as an axe is certainly intended, the passage is valuable as showing that the axe-heads among the Hebrews were of iron. Those which have been found in Egypt are of bronze, which was very anciently and generally used for the purpose. But this does not prove that they had none of iron; it seems rather to suggest that those of iron have been consumed by the corrosion of three thousand years, while those of bronze have been preserved. SEE HELVE.
(8.) The battle-axe, , mappets’ (Jer 51:20), was probably, as its root indicates, a heavy mace or maul, like that which gave his surname to Charles Martel. SEE BATTLE-AXE.
The most common use of the axe, as is well known, is to cut down trees; hence the expression in Mat 3:10, and Luk 3:9, the axe is laid at the root of the trees (comp. Silius Italicus, 10; also Virgil, AEn. 6:180; Isa 10:33). That trees are a general symbol of men is well known. SEE FOREST; SEE TREE. (See also Eze 31:3; Dan 4:7-8; Mat 7:19; Mat 12:33; Psa 1:3; Zec 11:1-2). What John Baptist therefore refers to is probably the excision of the Jewish nation. But there is a force in the preposition used here which escapes the ordinary reader: the expression , denotes that it had already been struck into the tree preparatory to felling it, and now only awaited the signal for the utter vengeance of Heaven. The axe was also used as the instrument of decollation, to which there is allusion in Rev 20:4, The souls of them that were leheaded for the testimony of Jesus, literally, cut with an axe. Hence the axe becomes a symbol of the divine judgments. Sometimes it is applied to a human instrument, as in Isa 10:15, Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? i.e. Shall the proud king of Assyria boast himself against God, whose instrument he is to execute his purpose? In Jer 51:20, the army of the Medes and Persians is most probably intended, as elsewhere the instrument of God’s vengeance is called a sword, a rod, a scourge (see also Jer 46:22). By. axes, which were a part of the insignia of the Roman magistracy, was denoted the power of life and death and of supreme judgment. Axes were also used in war (Sidonius, Carm. El. 5, 247; Horace, Ode 4, 4 Carm. Secul. 54; Virgil, dan. 2, 480). Axes were used in sacrifice; hence called the axe of the Hierophant. These are seen on various coins (Smith’s Hist. of Class. Ant. s.v. Securis).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Axe
used in the Authorized Version of Deut. 19:5; 20:19; 1 Kings 6:7, as the translation of a Hebrew word which means “chopping.” It was used for felling trees (Isa. 10:34) and hewing timber for building. It is the rendering of a different word in Judg. 9:48, 1 Sam. 13:20, 21, Ps. 74:5, which refers to its sharpness. In 2 Kings 6:5 it is the translation of a word used with reference to its being made of iron. In Isa. 44:12 the Revised Version renders by “axe” the Hebrew _maatsad_, which means a “hewing” instrument. In the Authorized Version it is rendered “tongs.” It is also used in Jer. 10:3, and rendered “axe.” The “battle-axe” (army of Medes and Persians) mentioned in Jer. 51:20 was probably, as noted in the margin of the Revised Version, a “maul” or heavy mace. In Ps. 74:6 the word so rendered means “feller.” (See the figurative expression in Matt. 3:10; Luke 3:9.)
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Axe
Hebrew kardom, “sharp”; large, for telling trees (Jdg 9:48; Jer 46:22); garzen, “cutting”, as “hatchet” from “hack,” securis from seco; barzel,”iron ” garzen sometimes means the “adze.” The head was fastened to the handle by thongs, and so was liable to slip off (Deu 19:5; 2Ki 6:5). For “axe” in Isa 44:12 margin; Jer 10:3, ma’atzad, others trans. a “knife” or “chisel,” such as a carver of wood idols would use. But KJV is good sense and good Hebrew; the “axe” is meant as the instrument to cut down the tree in the forest. Mappeetz (Jer 51:20), “battle axe,” a heavy mace or maul, whence Charles Martel was designated. Kasshil occurs only once, Psa 74:6, a large axe.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Axe
AXE.This word occurs twice in the Gospels (Mat 3:10, Luk 3:9), each time in the report of the preaching of the Baptist. The old familiar tool of peace and weapon of war (1Ki 6:7, Psa 74:5, Jer 51:20) has become a metaphor for the ministry of men with a mission of reform. This suits the spirit of one who, like John the Baptist, is filled with the teaching of the OT. For the axe gleams in its histories and flashes in its songs, while in prophetic mood the tool is changed to the personthe wielder is himself the weapon (Isa 10:33 f., Dan 4:14, Jer 51:20). All this is the forerunners inherited world of ideas on this implement of industry and weapon of attack. He is a part of all that his race has been. He sees the men of old times as men that lifted up axes upon a thicket of trees (Psa 74:5). The Messiah, the Coming One, is the last of the line. Nor are all in that line of the lineage of the house of David. As the Assyrian axe in the days of old, so now the Roman axe was laid at the root of Israel (Philochristus, ch. 4). Thoroughly as these powers had done their part, yet more drastic was to be the work of the future (every tree, Mat 3:10). Under this image of the axe, the road-maker (Mat 3:3) has his vision of the wood-cutter and his effectual working (Mat 3:10).
But God fulfils Himself in many ways. And when the Carpenter laid aside the axe of the workshop in Nazareth, the wood-cutter, thoroughly furnished unto every good work, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, was already prepared for going up against the trees. Jesus had been tempered by waiting, in solitude and temptation. And the stroke of His axe, when it fell, was deliberate, radical, universal (cf. Heb 4:12 f.). Men and institutions, the priests, the temple felt it. He would save the tree of humanity, even as a tree whose stock remaineth when they are felled (Isa 6:13). Therefore He struck at the root of the evil in man and naturesin. And because the strokes were meant to be regenerating and reforming, they were clean, swift, sharp, and stout (Joh 2:17; Joh 8:1 ff., Luk 13:1 ff.).
Finally, the axe is not only the sign-manual of the mission of the forerunner and the Fulfiller, it is that of reformers in general. As the axe of the backwoodsman has been tempered in fire and water past the useless state of brittleness and beyond the extremity of hardness, so the tempering of the reformer is done, on the one hand, in a series of Divine and delicate processes in the personality of him who is being touched to fine issues by the Spirit, for the service of God and man, and, on the other hand, in a parallel series of providential dispensations in the mind and environment of the people, the race, or the institution with which he has to deal.
Literature.Ecce Homo, ch. 1; Reynolds, John the Baptist, Lecture 4; Tennyson, Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur, ap. fin.; Morley, Life of Gladstone, ii. 252.
John R. Legge.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Axe
Fig. 77Various Axes
Several instruments of this description are so discriminated in Scripture as to show that the Hebrews had them of different forms and for various uses.
1. garzen, which occurs in Deu 19:5; Deu 20:19; 1Ki 6:7; Isa 10:15. From these passages it appears that this kind was employed in felling trees, and in hewing large timber for building. The conjecture of Gesenius, that in 1Ki 6:7 it denotes the axe of a stonemason, is by no means conclusive. The first text supposes a case of the head slipping from the helve in felling a tree. This would suggest that it was shaped like #3 in fig. 77 below, which is just the same instrument as our common hatchet, and appears to have been applied by the ancient Egyptians to the same general use as with us.
2. maatzad, which occur only in Isa 44:12; and Jer 10:3. From these passages it appears to have been a lighter implement than the former, or a kind of adze, used for fashioning or carving wood into shape; it was probably, therefore, like fig. 77 #4 to #7, which the Egyptians employed for this purpose. The differences of form and size, as indicated in the fig.s, appear to have been determined with reference to light or heavy work: #3 is a finer carving-tool.
3. qardom; this is the commonest name for an axe or hatchet. It is this of which we read in Jdg 9:48; Psa 74:5; 1Sa 13:20-21; Jer 46:22. It appears to have been more exclusively employed than the garzenfor felling trees, and had therefore probably a heavier head. In one of the Egyptian sculptures the inhabitants of Lebanon are represented as felling pine-trees with axes like fig. 77 #1. As the one used by the Egyptians for the same purpose was also of this shape, there is little doubt that it was also in use among the Hebrews.
The word rendered ‘axe’ in 2Ki 6:5 is literally ‘iron;’ but as an axe is certainly intended, the passage is valuable as showing that the axe-heads among the Hebrews were of iron. Those which have been found in Egypt are of bronze, which was very anciently and generally used for the purpose.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Axe
“an axe,” akin to agnumi, “to break,” is found in Mat 3:10, and Luk 3:9.