Encyclopedia entry
Oven
Heb. tannur, (Hos. 7:4). In towns there appear to have been public ovens. There was a street in Jerusalem (Jer. 37:21) called “bakers’ street” (the only case in which the name of a street in Jerusalem is preserved). The words “tower of the furnaces” (Neh. 3:11; 12:38) is more properly “tower of the ovens” (Heb. tannurim). These resemble the ovens in use among ourselves.
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There were other private ovens of different kinds. Some were like large jars made of earthenware or copper, which were heated inside with wood (1 Kings 17:12; Isa. 44:15; Jer. 7:18) or grass (Matt. 6:30), and when the fire had burned out, small pieces of dough were placed inside or spread in thin layers on the outside, and were thus baked. (See FURNACE.)
Pits were also formed for the same purposes, and lined with cement. These were used after the same manner.
Heated stones, or sand heated by a fire heaped over it, and also flat irons pans, all served as ovens for the preparation of bread. (See Gen. 18:6; 1 Kings 19:6.)
Also from Smith's (1884) +−
The eastern oven is of two kinds—fixed and portable. The former is found only in towns, where regular bakers are employed. (Hosea 7:4) The latter ia adapted to the nomad state, it consists of a large jar made of clay, about three feet high and widening toward the bottom, with a hole for the extraction of the ashes. Each household possessed such an article, (Exodus 8:3) and it was only in times of extreme dearth that the same oven sufficed for several families. (Leviticus 26:26) It was heated with dry twigs and grass, (Matthew 6:30) and the loaves were placed both inside and outside of it.
In the Bible
12
Verses where Oven is named. Berean Standard Bible (public domain).
- Hosea 7:4
They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.
- Hosea 7:6
For they prepare their heart like an oven while they lie in wait; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
- Hosea 7:7
All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings fall; not one of them calls upon Me.
- Lamentations 5:10
Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.
- Leviticus 2:4
Now if you bring an offering of grain baked in an oven, it must consist of fine flour, either unleavened cakes mixed with oil or unleavened wafers coated with oil.
- Leviticus 7:9
Likewise, every grain offering that is baked in an oven or cooked in a pan or on a griddle belongs to the priest who presents it,
+6 more verses naming Oven.
Scripture on Oven
18
Voices on Oven
24
Surfaced by name match — accuracy varies by title clarity.
Sources · Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) · Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884)
Public-domain text. Modernized only where archaic spelling impedes reading; original facts preserved. Verify against an authoritative modern reference before quoting.