Bible Strands
1 Samuel 13:20
Instead, all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records a routine national practice during Saul’s early reign, immediately following the Philistine decree that eliminated Israelite blacksmiths to prevent Hebrews from forging swords or spears.
The words — The text highlights וַ/יֵּרְד֥וּ (va/yiredu), literally "and they went down," and לִ/לְטוֹשׁ (li/litosh), "to sharpen," describing the physical movement of Israelite farmers to Philistine workshops for tool maintenance.
The thread — This dependence on foreign metalworkers echoes the later exile motif of losing craft autonomy, while the economic detail in 1 Samuel 13:21 parallels the detailed tax and fee structures found in Leviticus 27:2-33 and Numbers 31:50.
Why it lands — The passage plainly states that agricultural survival required submitting to an occupying power’s economy, demanding recognition of how military restriction directly dictated daily labor and national vulnerability.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock.