An AWL — a pointed tool for punching a hole through leather, and one of the smallest words in the Bible to carry a whole ceremony. ⭐ It stands in exactly TWO verses of the Hebrew Bible, Exodus 21:6 and Deuteronomy 15:17, and both are the same rite: a slave who has served his six years and does not want to leave has his ear put through against the door, and stays. It is not a sacred instrument — it is a leatherworker’s tool, the ordinary thing in the workshop for making a hole in a hide, and both laws simply reach for it. ⚠ The two versions of the rite differ, and the differences are the interesting part: Exodus brings the man to God first and offers the door or the doorpost; Deuteronomy has no such approach and keeps only the door — the doorpost being the surface Deuteronomy has twice reserved for the words of God (6:9, 11:20). ⚠ On the shelf it is ‘an aul’ in the old spelling of the KJV, ‘awl’ everywhere else, and lesna / punzón in Spanish; the NIV alone specifies the earlobe, which the Hebrew does not. → first discussed at Deut 15:17