In our previous post, we examined the nature of the Word of God as living and active, in this post we will focus this verse’s reference to the Word of God as also “sharper than any two-edged sword”. Sharper here is the Greek tomos, “sharper”, here as an adjective in the nominative in its only NT usage. The nominative here indicating that it also modifies the noun phrase “Word of God”, telling us something further about the nature of the Word of God. The usage of the term sharper here identifies for us the nature of the Word of God as a superior type of weapon to the “swords” of the culture. The sword it is asserted as sharper than here is, in English as, two-edged, or “distomon machairan” in the Greek. Distomon is a Greek term literally meaning “two or double edged”. Machairan is one of three Greek terms all referring to a bladed instrument of one form or another. We will look more closely at these terms in light of the somewhat unusual way in which this sword is described here in order to determine what may being communicated to us here. The first term here is “xiphos”, a two edged sword used by soldiers in close, hand to hand combat. the second term is kopis, a single edged heavier cutter, used for cutting and hacking, either militarily in battle or in the butchering of animals. The third term is maxaria, a single edged cutter, which took three distinct forms. The first is as a weapon also used in battle, the second as a knife used for cutting in the butchering and sacrificing of animals, the third, in smaller form, as a scalpel for “surgery”. We must note first that this maxaria here is double-edged, while the normal maxaria is single edged, which presents to us the first aspect of the superiority of this “sword” to the ordinary, everyday ones. We note also that the two edged sword (xiphos) of the culture was fundamentally a weapon of war, which identifies the Word of God as a weapon of war, made to fight a different kind of battle, a spiritual rather than physical one. Note also the reference to this sword as dividing joints and marrow, the Word of God being able, as the kopis, to divide joints and marrow. This again here referring not to physical joints and marrow, but to metaphysical joints and marrow. Note also the use of the term maxarian, here both as the implement through which sacrifice is conducted (the Word of God as the instrument through which we become “living sacrifices” through the “renewing of our minds” -Romans 12:1-2) and as the “scalpel” through which our “surgeon” (the Holy Spirit) removes the diseased and decaying “flesh” from us in the ongoing process of sanctification. So we find here that our present passage presents to us the reality the nature of the Word of God as the: weapon in the spiritual battle, means through which we are cut to the bone, instrument through which God enables us to become living sacrifices and scalpel through which He cuts away the flesh which hinders our sanctification. May we engage more deeply in an ongoing encounter with the Word of God, that this two edged sword may accomplish its purpose in us.