The tools mentioned in these verses were generally farm equipment, thus emphasizing the fact that the Israelites did not have modern weapons with which to fight against the Philistines. The prices were also very expensive, showing that the Philistines were making a lot of money from the Israelites who came to have their equipment sharpened.1 Without the proper equipment for battle any victory against the Philistines would require some kind of a miraculous intervention from the Lord.2
20 But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle,