Bible Reading by topic: the tool hammer

I like to teach sometimes, and read for relaxation, all of the references in the Bible to a particular word. I don’t do it to “count the number of times” or do some other "Bible analysis" that borders on somewhat heathen or pagan numerology beliefs. When people are too busy counting words in the Bible they are not busy enough understanding each occurrence of the actual word. Therefore I do publish the actual words and meaning as a meditation to show people how a concept is fully developed in the Bible. For example, let’s look at the word “hammer,” which is a tool, and how the word appears in the Bible.

1. Used by Israelites in defense against enemies, as a helpless woman slays a fleeing general.

Judges 4:17. Howbeit, Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite: for there was peace between Jabin the King of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. (21) Then Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep, and weary. So he died. (23) So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel. Judges 5:20. They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. (26) She put her hand to the nail, and her hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. (28) The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?

2. Idol makers use tools like hammers to exhaust themselves glorifying false gods and graven images.

Isaiah 44:9-10. They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know, that they may be ashamed. Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing? (12) The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water and is faint.

3. The hammer as a symbol of the Lord God’s word, power and will, especially against false prophets, false dream interpreters and false priests and all who believe them.

Jeremiah 23:28-35. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? Saith the Lord. Is not my word like a fire? Saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Therefore behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words everyone one from his neighbor. Behold I am against the prophets, said the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, he saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord. And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the Lord? Thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the Lord. And as for the prophet , and the priest, and the people that say, The burden of the Lord, I will even punish that man and his house.

4. The hammer as the power of Babylon that once broke the earth and now is broken in turn.

Jeremiah 50:22-25. A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken? How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the Lord. The Lord hath opened his armoury, and hath brought forth the weapons of his indignation: for this is the work of the Lord God of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans.

Observe that it does not matter how many times the word “hammer” appears in the Bible. What matters is the meaning of what the Lord instructs in each separate use of the word hammer, both in actual events and in symbolic description.