But as one was felling a beam,.... Cutting down a tree, or a branch of it:
the axe head fell into the water: into the waters of Jordan; or "the iron" d, the iron part of it, with which the wood was cut; that flew off from the helve into the water:
and he cried, and said, alas, master! for it was borrowed: it grieved him to lose his axe, because he could do no more work, and the more because it was not his own, but he had borrowed it of his neighbour; and still more, because, as it seems, he was poor, and not able to pay for it, which, being of an honest disposition, gave him distress.
d הברזל "ferrum", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.