Refining

Refining is the metallurgical operation by which precious metal is parted from its base alloy in the heat of the furnace, and across scripture the same operation supplies the figure for what Yahweh does with his people, his priesthood, and his word. The literal trade — refined gold by weight for the altar of incense, refined silver by talent for the temple walls — gives the figurative use its grip: dross is named, the furnace is lit, the silver is tried, and what comes out is fit for the refiner.

Refined Gold and Refined Silver

The refining vocabulary first lands in the temple inventory. David weighs out "refined gold" for the altar of incense and gold for the pattern of the chariot — the cherubim that cover the ark of the covenant of Yahweh (1Ch 28:18) — and assigns "three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, with which to overlay the walls of the houses" (1Ch 29:4). The refined metal is the material the sanctuary requires: nothing less pure than what the refiner has parted from its dross.

Wine on the Lees, Well Refined

The same vocabulary travels off the metal scale and onto the wine. In the prophetic feast on the mountain, Yahweh of hosts will make to all peoples "a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined" (Isa 25:6). "Well refined" carries the operation of parting the clear from the sediment over into the eschatological banquet: what is set before the peoples is what the refining process has finished.

Dross Named

Before refining can be promised, the dross has to be named. The sage's couplet plants the procedural form: "Take away the dross from the silver, And there comes forth a vessel for the refiner" (Pr 25:4). The verdict for the addressed people in Isaiah is the inverse of the procedural promise: "Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water" (Isa 1:22). Ezekiel makes the same naming and adds the metallurgical inventory: "Son of Man, the house of Israel has become dross to me: all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are the dross of silver" (Eze 22:18). The four base metals are listed against the silver they were meant to be — and the furnace is the next thing the prophet describes.

The Furnace of Affliction

Once the dross is named, the operation follows. Isaiah's promise meets the diagnosis of v22 head-on: "and I will turn my hand on you, and thoroughly purge away your dross, and will take away all your tin" (Isa 1:25). Yahweh's first-person speech in Jeremiah is the same operation again: "Therefore this is what Yahweh of Hosts says, Look, I will melt them, and try them; for what [else] should I do, because [it is] of the daughter of my people?" (Jer 9:7). Ezekiel makes the gathering and melting explicit, with the people themselves as the ore: "As they gather silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you⁺ in my anger and in my wrath, and I will lay you⁺ there, and melt you⁺" (Eze 22:20).

The furnace is not only judicial. Yahweh names the same apparatus as elective: "Look, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction" (Isa 48:10). And in Zechariah the third part is brought into the fire as the people Yahweh will own: "And I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried. They will call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people; and they will say, Yahweh is my God" (Zec 13:9). The end of the refining is the covenant formula — the refined are named as Yahweh's own.

The Refiner's Fire and the Sons of Levi

Malachi names the refiner directly. The day of his coming is set under the figure: "But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap" (Mal 3:2). The next verse fixes the operation on the priesthood: "and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they will offer to Yahweh offerings in righteousness" (Mal 3:3). Sitting at the crucible is the posture of the refiner; the offerings in righteousness are what comes out.

The refining figure also turns up the inverse verdict: when the metal will not part from its dross, the silversmith abandons the lot. "Men will call them refuse silver, because Yahweh has rejected them" (Jer 6:30). Refuse silver is dross that the refiner has given up on — the negative outcome the corrective furnace is meant to avert.

Persons Tried as Silver and Gold

The same operation is then transferred from the people-as-metal to the individual person under trial. The psalms put the test on Yahweh's first-person register: "For you, O God, have proved us: You have tried us, as silver is tried" (Ps 66:10). Sirach gives the figure as a sentence: "For gold is proved in fire, And acceptable men in a furnace of affliction" (Sir 2:5) — the same furnace-of-affliction vocabulary Isaiah used of the elective refining. Sirach also names the proverbial natural law that grounds the figure: "A heated furnace makes the metal become heated" (Sir 43:4) — the metal cannot be in the furnace and not be worked.

The New Testament keeps the figure. Peter brings the gold-tried-by-fire image onto the proof of faith: "that the proof of your⁺ faith, [being] more precious than gold that perishes though it is proved by fire, may be found to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1Pe 1:7). Paul brings the same image onto the assessor's day: "each man's work will be made manifest: for the day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will prove each man's work of what sort it is" (1Co 3:13). And the cleansing rule for spoils makes the underlying procedure literal: "everything that may go into fire, you⁺ will make to go through the fire, and it will be clean; nevertheless it will be purified with the water for impurity: and all that does not go into fire you⁺ will make to go through the water" (Nu 31:23). What can stand the fire is purified by the fire; what cannot, by water.

The Words of Yahweh, Tried

The refining figure finally lands on the word of God itself. The psalmist measures Yahweh's words against tried silver: "The words of Yahweh are pure words; As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, Purified seven times" (Ps 12:6). The same psalter measures Yahweh's way and Yahweh's word in the same line: "As for God, his way is perfect: The word of Yahweh is tried; He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him" (Ps 18:30). And the long acrostic of Psalm 119 sets the love of the refined against its purity: "Your [Speech] is very pure; Therefore your slave loves it" (Ps 119:140). The refining vocabulary that began with the silversmith's crucible ends with scripture passing the silversmith's test: tried, purified, very pure.