Discovery Box1 Kings 8:51 
Context8:51 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
1 Kings 8:53
Context8:53 After all, 4 you picked them out of all the nations of the earth to be your special possession, 5 just as you, O sovereign Lord, announced through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”
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.
4 tn Or “For.”
5 tn Heb “your inheritance.”
