Snuffers

Snuffers are part of the small-implement inventory of the temple — utensils used in tending the lamps that burned before Yahweh. The notices come in pairs: first when Solomon furnishes the temple, then later when the same gear is enumerated in repair-fund and plunder lists.

In Solomon's Temple

When Solomon completes the inner furnishings, snuffers appear among the gold service-pieces alongside cups, basins, spoons, and firepans: "and the cups, and the snuffers, and the basins, and the spoons, and the firepans, of pure gold; and the hinges, both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, [to wit,] of the temple, of gold" (1Ki 7:50). They belong to the same class as the other lamp-tending and altar-tending implements, and Solomon casts them in pure gold along with the rest.

In the Repair-Fund Notice

Under Joash, the silver brought in for temple repairs is accounted for separately from any new vessels: "But there were not made for the house of Yahweh cups of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver, of the silver that was brought into the house of Yahweh" (2Ki 12:13). The text lists snuffers in the same enumeration as cups, basins, and trumpets — implements that could in principle have been replaced from the offering — and notes that the funds went instead to the workmen.

Carried Off in the Babylonian Plunder

When Jerusalem falls, the inventory turns up again, this time in bronze, as the Babylonian forces strip the temple. "And the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered, they took away" (2Ki 25:14). Jeremiah's parallel record of the plunder uses the same list: "The pots also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the basins, and the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered, they took away" (Jer 52:18). The same small tools that Solomon had cast in gold are carried off as bronze service-pieces — implements of the daily tending of the lamps, listed every time the temple gear is counted out.