FIREPAN. 1. A pan of bronze ( Exodus 27:3 etc.), silver (Mishna, Yôma , iv. 4), or gold ( 1 Kings 7:50 etc.), for removing charcoal, and probably ashes also, from the altar of burnt-offering. According to the Mishna ( loc. cit. ), the firepans or coal-pans were of various sizes, there given, and were each furnished with a long or a short handle. They seem, therefore, to have resembled ladies, or the now obsolete bed-warmers.
When used to hold live charcoal for the burning of incense the coal-pan becomes a censer (Leviticus 10:1; Leviticus 16:12 etc.). Hence in Numbers 4:14 , 1Ki 7:50 , 2 Chronicles 4:22 , RV [Note: Revised Version.] has ‘firepans’ for AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘censers,’ there being no reference in these passages to incense. The same utensil was used for removing the burnt portions of the lamp-wicks of the golden ‘candlestick’ or lamp-stand, although rendered snuff dishes (which see Tindale has rightly ‘firepans’).
2. In Zechariah 12:6 RV [Note: Revised Version.] there is mention of ‘a pan (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] hearth) of fire’; in other words, a brasier . See Coal; House, § 7 .
A. R. S. Kennedy.