Beam

Beam renders several Hebrew and Greek words in Scripture, covering structural timbers in buildings, the bar of a loom, and the shaft of a spear. Goliath's spear shaft is compared to a weaver's beam in 1 Samuel 17:7—a vivid indication of its massive size. The floating iron axe-head recovered from the Jordan River (2 Kings 6:5–7) came from beams being cut for the sons of the prophets' building project. Jesus's use of the beam (dokos) and speck (karphos) in Matthew 7:3–5 is one of his most memorable images of self-deception, warning against condemning others' minor faults while blind to one's own major failures.