Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

FURNACE

An oven made of brick or other fireproof materials in which fire was placed for cooking, warmth, or refining and purifying metals. The first biblical reference to a furnace occurs in a covenant ceremony between Yahweh and Abram (Gen. 15:9-21). Abram is instructed to halve a heifer, a goat, and a ram and place the halves opposite one another. After sundown a smoking furnace (“fire pot”) and a burning lamp pass between the halves of the slain animals as a seal of the covenant. In another passage, Moses takes ashes from a furnace (“kiln”) and sprinkles them in the air so that they become boils on the Egyptians (Exod. 9:8, 10). As Yahweh descends upon Mt. Sinai, smoke arises like smoke from a furnace (Exod. 19:18).

When Daniel and his friends refuse to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image, they are thrown into a fiery furnace (Dan. 3:6-26). Nehemiah refers to a tower of furnaces in the wall of Jerusalem, possibly large ovens for baking bread (Neh. 3:11; 12:38).

The furnace is a refiner of gold (Prov. 17:3 = 27:21) and silver (Ps. 12:6[MT 7]), and that imagery is employed as a metaphor for purifying or refining Israel (Isa. 31:9; 48:10; cf. Ezek. 22:18, 20, 22; NRSV “smelter”). The furnace is also a metaphor for the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt (Deut. 4:20; 1 Kgs. 8:51). The smoke from Sodom is compared to the smoke of a furnace (Gen. 19:28), again suggesting that purification took place through the destruction of evil.

In Matthew “furnace” refers to eternal punishment (Matt. 13:42, 50). “One like a son of man” has feet like shining metal heated in a furnace (Rev. 1:15). John also sees smoke from the “bottomless pit” ascending like smoke from a furnace (Rev. 9:2).

Joe E. Lunceford

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

FURNACE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)