coal Summary and Overview

It is by no means certain that the Hebrews were acquainted with mineral coal, although it is found in Syria. Their common fuel was dried dung of animals and wood charcoal. Two different words are found in Hebrew to denote coal, both occurring in Prov. 26:21, "As coal [Heb. peham; i.e., "black coal"] is to burning coal [Heb. gehalim]." The latter of these words is used in Job 41:21; Prov. 6:28; Isa. 44:19. The words "live coal" in Isa. 6:6 are more correctly "glowing stone." In Lam. 4:8 the expression "blacker than a coal" is literally rendered in the margin of the Revised Version "darker than blackness." "Coals of fire" (2 Sam. 22:9, 13; Ps. 18:8, 12, 13, etc.) is an expression used metaphorically for lightnings proceeding from God. A false tongue is compared to "coals of juniper" (Ps. 120:4; James 3:6). "Heaping coals of fire on the head" symbolizes overcoming evil with good. The words of Paul (Rom. 12:20) are equivalent to saying, "By charity and kindness thou shalt soften down his enmity as surely as heaping coals on the fire fuses the metal in the crucible."

The first and most frequent use of the word rendered coal is a live ember, burning fuel. #Pr 26:21| In #2Sa 22:9,13| "coals of fire" are put metaphorically for the lightnings proceeding from God. #Ps 18:8,12,13; 140:10| In #Pr 26:21| fuel not yet lighted is clearly signified. The fuel meant in the above passage is probably charcoal, and not coal in our sense of the word.

COAL . There is no evidence that the Hebrews were acquainted with coal. They used charcoal for their fires. The Hebrew words which are translated "coal" etymologically refer to heat in general, usually to fuel of wood, and in 1 Kgs 19:6 and Isa 6:6 to hot stones. In the N.T. the Greek words, Rom 12:20 and John 18:18; John 21:9, refer likewise to charcoal.

pecham, "a black coal," and gachelath, "burning coals." Proverbs 26:21; "as coals (fuel) are to burning coals," etc.; so we speak of quarrelsome men "adding fuel to the flame." "Coals of fire" in 2 Samuel 22:9; 2 Samuel 22:13, represent the lightning of God's wrath. In Proverbs 25:22, "heap coals of fire upon thine enemy's head" (Romans 12:20), the meaning is, melt him into burning shame at his own unworthy hatred, and love for thee who hast overcome his evil with thy good. Either he shall be like metals melted by fire or like clay hardened by it. In Psalm 120:4 "coals of juniper" rather burning brands of broom, retamim. The Arabs regard the retem (broom) the best firewood. As their slanders burnt like coals on fire, so, by righteous retribution in kind, God will give them hot coals. Psalm 140:10; Psalm 18:12-13; compare the same image of the tongue, James 3:6. In 2 Samuel 14:7 "they shall quench my coal that is left," i.e., extinguish the only surviving light of my home, my only son. In Isaiah 6:6 and 1 Kings 19:6 the "coals" are in the Hebrew (rezeph) hot stones, on which cakes were baked and flesh cooked. In Habakkuk 3:5 (resheph) "burning coals" poetically and figuratively express "burning diseases," as the parallel "pestilence" shows; also compare Deuteronomy 32:24; Psalm 91:6. In Lamentations 4:8 translate as margin darker than blackness." Mineral coal protrudes through the strata to the surface of parts of Lebanon, at Cornale, eight miles from Beirut, the coal seams are three feet thick; but it seems not to have been anciently known as fuel. Charcoal is what is meant by "coal."