Meaning
Tongs tongz (melqachayim): This word is, where it occurs in the King James Version and the English Revised Version, with two exceptions, changed in the American Standard Revised Version into "snuffers" (Exod 25:38, Num 4:9, 2Chr 4:21; see SNUFFERS), The exceptions are 1Ki 7:49, "tongs of gold," and Isa 6:6, "taken with the tongs from off the altar."
In Isa 44:12, where another word (ma`atsadh) is used, "the smith with the tongs" of the King James Version is changed in the Revised Version (British and American) into "the smith maketh an axe" (compare Jer 10:3).
