Stone plane, saw

The stone plane/saw was an instrument used in the preparation of building stones.

2SA 12:31: There is disagreement among scholars concerning the precise action that is being described here, and this is reflected in the different translations. It is possible to understand that David tortured or killed the inhabitants of Rabbah with various implements, including saws (KJV, NASB). Most modern translations, however, understand the text to mean that David put the people to work with those implements (for example, NCV “He also brought out the people of the city and forced them to work with saws, iron picks, and axes …”). This is the preferred interpretation. While the argument is more complicated for the parallel text at 1CH 20:3 (which is not identical), most translations give the same rendering there.

It now seems probable that translations have been inaccurate in rendering the Hebrew word mgerah as “saw[s].” Archaeology knows of no use of saws either to quarry or to shape stones in the time period described. Many building stones have been found which were finely smoothed, but these stones show none of the marks that would have been left by a saw. It has been proposed that the mgerah was a heavy metal instrument with a wide rough surface, like that of a file. This instrument was pushed and pulled across the surface of the stone until it was quite smooth. This would have been heavy and exhausting work, appropriate for captives or slaves (see Barkay, pages 32–37).