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FIREPAN.—1. A pan of bronze (Exo_27:3 etc.), silver (Mishna, Yôma, iv. 4), or gold (1Ki_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 (Lev_10:1; Lev_16:12 etc.). Hence in Num_4:14, 1Ki_7:50, 2Ch_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 Zec_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.