Chalk

Chalk appears in scripture once, as the figure of stone reduced to crumbling dust.

Chalkstones and the Pulverized Altar

Isaiah pictures Jacob's atonement in terms of demolition. The stones of an idolatrous altar are not merely toppled but ground down: "Therefore by this will the iniquity of Jacob be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, [so that] the Asherim and the sun-images will rise no more" (Isa 27:9). The image trades on chalk's softness — easily shattered, irrecoverable once pulverized — to picture the thoroughness with which the apparatus of false worship is to be undone.