Text -- 1 Kings 8:51 (NET)

8:51 After all, they are your people and your special possession whom you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron-smelting furnace.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: 1Ki 8:51

¹ tn Or “for.”

² tn Heb “inheritance.”

³ tn The Hebrew term כּוּר (kur, “furnace,” cf. Akkadian ku„ru) is a metaphor for the intense heat of purification. A כּוּר was not a source of heat but a crucible (“iron-smelting furnace”) in which precious metals were melted down and their impurities burned away (see I. Cornelius, NIDOTTE 2:618-19). Thus Egypt served not as a place of punishment for the Israelites, but as a place of refinement to bring Israel to a place of submission to divine sovereignty.

sn From the middle of the iron-smelting furnace. The metaphor of a furnace suggests fire and heat and is an apt image to remind the people of the suffering they endured while slaves in Egypt.