1 Samuel 13:19 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

There was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel To this miserable condition the Philistines had reduced them during the forty years' tyranny which they exercised over them, as we read Judges 13:1. But after Samuel had put an end to that tyranny, by the great overthrow which he gave the Philistines at Eben-ezer, it seems something strange they had not restored their artificers. But the sloth of the Israelites appears in their whole story: and it was not easy, in so short a time, for men to learn this trade, which the Philistines wisely destroyed, as the Chaldeans, when they took Jerusalem, carried away all the smiths to Babylon, that they who remained in the land might not arm themselves again, 2 Kings 24:14.