Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

KILN

Primarily an enclosure for firing pottery or burning lime (Heb. kiḇšān, in contrast with kûr, a smelting furnace for metals). Burnt lime was slaked and used for preparing mortar, plaster, and whitewash. Isa. 33:12 refers metaphorically to the process of burning lime. Thistles and thorns were used to fuel lime kilns.

Pottery kilns in ancient Palestine were of two types: a vertical or up-draft kiln and a horizontal or down-draft kiln (ANEP, 44, 344). By far the more frequently used type, the vertical kiln dates back to the Early Bronze Age and has remained essentially unchanged to the present time.

The Hebrew term is used metaphorically in reference to the billowing smoke from the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:28; NRSV “furnace”) and from God’s presence on Mt. Sinai (Exod. 19:18). The smoke is said to have risen like smoke from a kiln. Ashes from a kiln sprinkled into the air by Moses and Aaron inaugurate the sixth plague of boils (Exod. 9:8, 10).

Bibliography. S. Gibson, “Lime Kilns in North-East Jerusalem,” PEQ 116 (1984): 94-102.

Stephen J. Andrews

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

KILN

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)