Description
The pruning knife was a knife or metal blade, sometimes attached to a long wooden handle.
Usage
The pruning process involved cutting away or cutting back unproductive branches so they could produce better.
Translation
All of the references, except ISA 18:5, are to making spears into pruning knives or vice versa. Where metal plows and pruning knives are not used as agricultural tools, some adjustment in this figure will be necessary. The essential point is that instruments of war and bloodshed will be replaced by instruments of peace and prosperity (or the opposite in JOL 4:10). If iron instruments are not used in an area, it may not be possible to keep the idea that the weapons themselves are made into agricultural tools. In such a case, a translator can simply say that people will destroy their weapons and make tools for farming instead.