Quarries

The word "quarries" in Judges 3:19, 26 (KJV) represents the Hebrew pesilim, more accurately rendered as carved images or idols in most modern translations — the same word used for graven images forbidden in the Decalogue. In the account of Ehud's assassination of Eglon king of Moab, Ehud turned back from the sculptured stones near Gilgal before delivering his message to the king. The site "by Gilgal" likely marked a stone monument or boundary marker of pagan religious significance. The older translation "quarries" arose from a misunderstanding of the Hebrew term as referring to stone-cutting sites rather than carved cultic objects.

In the building of Solomon's temple, actual stone quarrying is prominently featured: Solomon employed 80,000 stone-hewers in the mountains of Lebanon (1 Kings 5:15), and the stones were dressed at the quarry so that "neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house" during construction (1 Kings 6:7). The precision of ancient quarrying, especially the massive foundation stones of the temple mount, remains a subject of archaeological study.