Sword

Sword, in the A.V., is the usual rendering of חֶרֶב, chereb (from חָרִב, to lay waste), which was simply a large knife, as it is rendered in Jos 5; Jos 2; Eze 5:1; Eze 2. Less frequent words are רֶעִח, retsach, Ps 42:10 [11], a crushing or outbreak ("slaughter," Eze 21:27); שֶׁלִח, shelach (Job 33:18; Job 36:12; Joe 2:8), a dart, as elsewhere rendered; N.T. ῥομφαία, a sabre, or long and broad sword (Luke 2, 35; Re 1:16; Re 2:12,16; Re 6:8; Re 19:15,21); elsewhere μάχαιρα, a dagger, or short sword. See ARMOR.

1. The first mention of this principal offensive weapon in Bible history is in the narrative of the massacre at Shechem, when "Simeon and Levi took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly and slew all the males" (Ge 34:25). But there is an allusion to it shortly before in a passage undoubtedly of the earliest date (Ewald, 1, 446, note): the expostulation of Laban with Jacob (Ge 31:26). After this, during the account of the conquest and of the monarchy, the mention of the sword is frequent, but very little can be gathered from the casual notices of the text as to its shape, size, material, or mode of use. Perhaps if anything is to be inferred it is that the chereb was not either a heavy or a long weapon. That of Ehud was only a cubit; i.e. eighteen inches, long, so as to have been concealed under his garment, and nothing is said to lead to the inference that it was shorter than usual, for the "dagger" of the A. V. is without any ground, unless it be a rendering of the μάχαιρα of the Sept. But even assuming that Ehud's sword was shorter than usual, yet a consideration of the narratives in 2Sa 2:16; 2Sa 20:8-10, and also of the ease with which David used the sword of a man so much larger than himself as Goliath (1Sa 17:51; 1Sa 21:9-10), goes to show that the cheireb was both a lighter and a shorter weapon than the modern sword. What frightful wounds one blow of the sword of the Hebrews could inflict, if given even with the left hand of a practiced swordsman, may be gathered from a comparison of 2Sa 20:8-12 with 1Ki 2:5. A ghastly picture is there given us of the murdered man and is murderer. The unfortunate Amasa actually disemboweled by the single stroke, and "wallowing" in his blood in the middle of the road the treacherous Joab standing over him, bespattered from his "girdle" to his "shoes" with the blood which had spouted from his victim!