Mattock

Egyptian model of a man plowing
Egyptian model of a man plowing (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public domain, MMA) Plow and plowshare

About Mattock

A farming tool used for digging or breaking up the soil (1 Samuel 13:20–21, translated “pick” in the New Living Translation).

See Agriculture.

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The object itself Article

Form, use in ancient daily life, and how translators render the term.

All Scripture References (16)

Deuteronomy (1)
Deuteronomy 22:10

Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

Judges (1)
Judges 14:18

Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the city said to Samson: “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” So he said to them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!”

1 Samuel (3)
1 Samuel 8:12

He will appoint some for himself as commanders of thousands and of fifties, and others to plow his ground, to reap his harvest, and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.

1 Samuel 13:20

Instead, all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles.

1 Samuel 13:21

The charge was a pim for sharpening a plowshare or mattock, a third of a shekel for sharpening a pitchfork or an axe, and a third of a shekel for repointing an oxgoad.

1 Kings (1)
1 Kings 19:19

So Elijah departed and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve teams of oxen, and he was with the twelfth team. Elijah passed by him and threw his cloak around him.

Job (1)
Job 1:14

a messenger came and reported to Job: “While the oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby,

Psalms (1)
Psalm 129:3

The plowmen plowed over my back; they made their furrows long.

Proverbs (1)
Proverbs 20:4

The slacker does not plow in season; at harvest time he looks, but nothing is there.

Isaiah (2)
Isaiah 2:4

Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war.

Isaiah 28:24

Does the plowman plow for planting every day? Does he continuously loosen and harrow the soil?

Joel (1)
Amos (2)
Amos 6:12

“Do horses gallop on the cliffs? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—

Amos 9:13

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, with which all the hills will flow.

Micah (1)
Micah 4:3

Then He will judge between many peoples and arbitrate for strong nations far and wide. Then they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor will they train anymore for war.

Luke (1)
Luke 9:62

Then Jesus declared, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”