1 Kings 8:51

8:51 After all, ¹  they are your people and your special possession ²  whom you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron-smelting furnace. ³ 

[8:51]  ¹ tn Or “for.”

[8:51]  ² tn Heb “inheritance.”

[8:51]  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.