Furnace
“Furnace, from boiling or refining”
Summary
A structure used for smelting metal, making bricks and lime, or baking, also used figuratively for affliction, testing, and the place of eternal punishment.
☩Types of Furnaces
Several Hebrew and Greek words are translated 'furnace': the smelting or calcining furnace, the lime-kiln, the refining furnace for precious metals, the brick-kiln, and the baker's oven. Nebuchadnezzar's furnace was large, with an opening at the top for casting in materials and a door at ground level for extraction.
☩The Fiery Furnace
The Persians and Babylonians used the furnace as a means of capital punishment. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar's golden image, they were cast into a furnace heated seven times hotter than normal, yet God preserved them and a fourth figure 'like the Son of God' walked with them.
☩Figurative Uses
The furnace symbolizes affliction and testing. Egypt is called 'the iron furnace' from which God delivered Israel. God brings His people through affliction to purify them as silver is refined. In the New Testament, the 'furnace of fire' represents the place of eternal punishment for the wicked at the final judgment.
Related Verses35 mentions
References
- 1.John McClintock and James Strong, "Furnace," in Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. III (Harper & Brothers, 1867–1887).
- 2.James Orr (ed.), "Furnace," in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. II (Howard-Severance Company, 1915).
- 3.George Morrish, "Furnace," in Morrish's Concise Bible Dictionary (George Morrish, 1898).