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Bible Dictionaries
Brick
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or BRICK . The use of sun-dried bricks as building material in OT times, alongside of the more durable limestone, is attested both by the excavations and by Scripture references (see House). The process of brick-making shows the same simplicity in every age and country. Suitable clay is thoroughly moistened, and reduced to a uniform consistency by tramping and kneading ( Nahum 3:14 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘go into the clay, and tread the mortar’). It then passes to the brick-moulder, who places the right quantity in his mould, an open wooden frame with one of its four sides prolonged as a handle, wiping off the superfluous clay with his hand. The mould is removed and the brick left on the ground to dry in the sun. Sometimes greater consistency was given to the clay by mixing it with chopped straw and the refuse of the threshing-floor, as related in the familiar passage Exodus 5:7-19 . As regards the daily ‘tale of bricks’ there referred to, an expert moulder in Egypt to-day is said to be able to turn out no fewer than ‘about 3000 bricks’ per diem (Vigouroux, Dict. de la Bible , i. 1932). The Egyptian bricks resembled our own in shape, while those of Babylonia were generally as broad as they were long. According to Flinders Petrie, the earliest Palestine bricks followed the Babylonian pattern.
There is no evidence in OT of the making of kiln-burnt bricks, which was evidently a foreign custom to the author of Genesis 11:3 . The brickkiln of 2 Samuel 12:31 , Nahum 3:14 is really the brick-mould (so RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ). In the obscure passage Jeremiah 43:9 RV [Note: Revised Version.] has brickwork . A curious ritual use of bricks as incense-altars is mentioned in Isaiah 65:3 .
Reference may also be made to the use of clay as a writing material, which was introduced into Palestine from Babylonia, and, as we now know, continued in use in certain quarters till the time of Hezekiah at least. Plans of buildings, estates, and cities were drawn on such clay tablets, a practice which illustrates the command to Ezekiel to draw a plan of Jerusalem upon a tils or clay brick (Ezekiel 4:1 , see the elaborate note by Haupt in ‘Ezekiel’ ( PB [Note: B Polychrome Bible.] ), 98 ff.).
A. R. S. Kennedy.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Brick'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/b/brick.html. 1909.
