Bible Dictionaries
Quarry

Holman Bible Dictionary

Area of land where stones were extracted for building various objects and buildings. Good stone lay close to the surface. In most places it was broken out of its bed by cracking the stones along lines of cleavage. Cutting these stones was obviously a dangerous business (Ecclesiastes 10:9 ). KJV refers to quarries in Judges 3:19-26 . The Hebrew term pesalim usually refers to images of gods. Thus most modern translations read: “idols” or “sculpted stones,” the latter possibly referring to Joshua's stones of commemoration ( Joshua 4:1 ). Modern translations use “quarry” in 1 Kings 6:7 to make explicit the intention of the more literal KJV reading. See Masons .