Brick-Kiln

The brick-kiln in scripture appears at three points: as a feature of city defenses, as a fixture at Pharaoh's gate where Jeremiah hides stones for a prophetic sign, and as the labor to which David sets the captured Ammonites. The umbrella collects the kiln itself and the brick-making to which it is attached.

A defensive installation

When Nahum addresses doomed Nineveh, the prophet's mock-instruction lists the steps of a siege preparation, the kiln among them: "Draw yourself water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar; make strong the brickkiln" (Na 3:14). The kiln is treated as part of a city's basic infrastructure — clay trodden, mortar prepared, fired bricks the material of fortress walls.

At Pharaoh's gate in Tahpanhes

After the fall of Jerusalem, Jeremiah is taken to Egypt with the remnant. There Yahweh commands him to perform a sign-act in the courtyard of Pharaoh's residence: "Take great stones in your hand, and hide them in mortar in the brickwork, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah;" (Je 43:9). The fired-brick paving at the gate becomes the canvas for the prophetic deposit — a permanent installation of clay and brick into which the stones are pressed.

The Ammonite captives at the brick-mold

The kiln also stands behind the closing scene of David's Ammonite war. After the fall of Rabbah, the captured population is set to forced labor: "And he brought forth the people who were in it. And he put [them to work] with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes of iron. And he made them serve making bricks. And thus he did to all the cities of the sons of Ammon. And David and all the people returned to Jerusalem" (2Sa 12:31). The brick-making here belongs to the same trade — clay, mold, and kiln — to which Israel itself had been bound under Egypt.