כִּיר kīr – cooking-stove

Semantic Fields: Utensils Food Preparation
Author(s): M.D. Koster
First published: 2014-06-28
Citation: M.D. Koster, כִּיר kīr – cooking-stove,
Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database (sahd-online.com), 2014 (WORK IN PROGRESS)

Introduction

Grammatical type:
Occurrences: 1x HB (1/0/0)

Torah: Lev 11:35.

A.1

1. Root and Comparative Material

A.1
Semitic?:Gesenius & Roediger, TPC, 672a; BDB, 468b and HAWAT, 176b derive כִּירַיִם, like כּוּר and כִּיֹּור, from a supposed Semitic root kwr ‘to dig’ (cf. Ps. 22:17), and/or ‘to be/make round’ (cf. Orel & Stolbova, HSED, 323, No. 1481). In view of the weak middle radical w/y a direct derivation from כרה ‘to dig’ and/or כרר Pilp. ‘to go round, dance’ is less likely.

However, GB, KBL, HALAT and HAHAT regard *כִּיר as a loan from Akkadian kīru (see below). This seems a better line of derivation.

Akkadian: It is difficult to believe that Sumerian gir₄/kir, Akkadian kīru ‘kiln (for lime and bitumen)’ and Akkadian kūru ‘smelting furnace’ are totally unrelated. Mankowski, ALBH 67-8 deems it possible that the Sumerian word was borrowed from Semitic kūru and that later on Akkadian borrowed it back in the form of kīru. Ellenbogen, FWOT, 83, and Tawil, ALCBH, 160, take the words together. In my opinion it is likely that both words are originally Semitic and derive from a √kwr, cf. Syriac kwr Etpa. ‘to be hot, burn’ and kūrā, ‘fire, furnace’ (Costaz, DSF, 153; Sokoloff, SLB, 612). However, it would seem wise to keep the two nouns apart as denoting different types of heating devices.

Ugaritic: kr ‘to be hot, furious, enraged’ (?, cf. Del Olmo Lete & Sanmartín, DULAT, 454).

Postbiblical Hebrew:Jastrow, DTT, 636b: כִירָה, ‘a portable stove on feet, with caves for two pots’; see further Section 6.

Jewish Aramaic:Sokoloff, DJBA, 578: כירי (plural) ‘oven’

Syriac:See above.

Old Arabic: kwr ‘fire altar’ (Biella, DOSA, 244).

Classical Arabic: kūr and kīr ‘a blacksmith’s fire-place’ (Lane, AEL, 2637)

Modern Palestinian Arabic: kûr ‘réchaud en terre cuite’ (stove of baked clay); kûra ‘soufflet de forge’ (blacksmith’s bellows) (DPASyr, 463).

Ethiopic: kawr ‘furnace’ = Amh. agodo ‘pit in which the blacksmith melts iron’ (Leslau, CDG, 300).

2. Formal Characteristics

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3. Syntagmatics

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4. Ancient Versions

a. Septuagint (LXX) and other Greek versions (αʹ, σʹ, θʹ):

Lev 11:35 κυθρόποδες (reading κλίβανοι καὶ κυθρόποδες καθαιρεθήσονται); κυχυθρόπους??? -- LSJ 2014a: 1. ‘stand for a pot’; 2. ‘pot’ or ‘cauldron’; GELS-L, 270b: ‘pot, cauldron, potstand’; GELS-M, 417: ‘vessel for cooking food and boiling in <...> pot, cauldron’.

b. Peshitta (Pesh):

In Lev 11:35 it reads wbyt tpyʾ, a rendering clearly dependent on Jewish tradition (cf. Tg). Brockelmann, LS, 830b: 1. ‘focus’ <hearth, coal-pan> Lev. 11₃₅; 2. ‘tripus’; Payne Smith, TS, 4477: ‘tripos’, but ibid., 328 tpyʾ (< ʾpʾ ‘to bake’): ‘coquina’, and 498 s.v. bt tpyʾ: ‘coquina, i.e. bakehouse’; Payne Smith (Margoliouth), CSD, 617b: ‘a bakehouse, oven; a kettle, a three-legged caldron’ <= cauldron>; ibid., 44b s.v. bt tpyʾ: ‘bakehouse’.

c. Targum (Tg):

As is evident from the Hebrew ending of כירים, Tg^O on Lev. 11:35 leaves the word untranslated. Tg^N and Tg^PsJ תפיין ‘stoves’, cf. Jastrow, DTT, 1685b-86a: 1. ‘stove, fireplace’; 2. ‘hollow on the hearth where coals are put, cooking stove’; Sokoloff, DJPA*, 588: ‘fireplace for cooking where coals are placed’; Sokoloff, DJBA, 219 s.v. תפי בי ‘stove, fireplace’.

d. Vulgate (Vg):

Lev 11:35 cytropodes (clibani sive cytropodes destruentur), evidently based on LXX.

A.1 The Arab. translation has mustawqadun ‘hearth’ (that which is kindled), which reminds Dalman of the common mawqade ‘Kochherd’ in Palestine (AuS, Bd. 7, 206, cf. 196-7; → יָקוּד).

5. Lexical/Semantic Fields

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6. Exegesis

6.1 Textual Evidence

A.1 In spite of the masculine form of the dual כִּירַיִם, the singular might well be the feminine כִּירָה which is the normal form in postbiblical Hebrew (cf. GBHrev, § 90e on the plural). Lev 11:31b-38 discusses the outcome of all sorts of contact (נגע, vv. 31, 36) with the carcass (נְבֵלָה) of dead reptiles: anything upon which such a creature falls (נפל) will be unclean, any vessel of wood (כְּלִי ־עֵץ), garment, skin or sack must be put into water (v. 32). Every earthen vessel (כְּלִי ־חֶרֶשׂ, cf. Kelso, CVOT, 6-7, No. 5; 18, No. 40) into which it falls shall be broken (שׁבר Qal), its contents will be unclean (v. 33). After provisions about unclean water and drink in v. 34, v. 35 resumes the theme of vv. 32-33. The general rule of v. 32a is repeated in v. 35a: everything upon which any part of their carcass (מִנִּבְלָתָם) falls shall be unclean. Now it continues with earthenware which is not used as containers of food, but earthenware used to prepare food: oven (→תַֹּנּוּר) and כִירַיִם. These objects too must be shattered (יֻתָֹּץ וְכִירַיִם תַֹּנּוּר) because they have become unclean and should be treated as such (לָכֶם יִהְיוּ וּטְמֵאִים הֵם טְמֵאִים). Apparently the כִּירַיִם was made of clay, like the oven. It could rather easily be destroyed and, again, remade -- just like the כָּל ־כְּלִי ־חֶרֶשׂ of v. 33, but in contrast with the כְּלִי ־עֵץ of v. 32, which had to be cleaned in water.

In collocation with the well-known term → תַֹּנּוּר ‘oven’, כִירַיִם may represent some kind of apparatus for baking or cooking. In view of its dual ending it probably had two openings. Nothing is said about its seize.

In the Qumran Temple Scroll, 11Q19, XXXVII.13 כירים occurs in the following context: ‘In the four corners of the courtyard <of the priests> you shall make for them a place for the כירים <14> where they shall cook their sacrifices and the sin-offerings’. As this regulation was intended for the four corners, it seems most plausible to interprete כירים here as a plural; but the dual, in agreement with Lev. 11:35, is also possible: ‘make <ldots> a place for a כירים’.

In rabbinic sources the כירים are mentioned often, e.g, m. Shab., II.1; V.2; m. Kel. 6:2. Usually the word is translated as ‘double stove’ because of its two openings. It was often placed against a wall or in a corner. It was fuelled with stubble or straw. Cf. Krauss, TA, Bd. 1, 90-1; Dalman, AuS, Bd. 4, 15, n. 2; 45, nn. 2-3; 264, n. 2; Bd. 7, 206, n. 3; Brand, KHBH, 230-243.

6.2 Pictorial Material

A.1 Cf. Dalman, AuS, Bd. 4, Abb. 5, 11, and Bd. 7, Abb. 34, 98-100; Honeyman 1939, Plate XX, Fig. 13; Brand, KHBH, 134, 138.

Dalman, AuS, Bd. 4, 45 writes,

Später ist ein beweglicher Kochherd als kīrā bezeugt, <...> welcher der mauḳade der Araber (S. 40) entsprechend aus einer nach vorn offenen Einfassung auf länglichem Boden bestanden haben wird und unter Umständen als kīrájim <...> diese Einfassung zweimal nebeneinander hatte, so daß zwei Töpfe aufgesetzt werden konnten.

6.3 Archaeology

A.1 Small stoves having two openings to receive two cooking pots have been found at various sites (Levine 1989, 205b, n. 20; Milgrom 1991, 679). Avitzur, 116, Fig. 307 provides a photograph of a small cooking-stove with two openings from Masada (Jacques van Ruiten called my attention to this reference, M.D.K.). Another photograph of what is possibly such a double stove is provided by Boling 1975, Fig. 8a.

\includegraphics{double_stove.eps}

Stove for two pots found at Masada (after Avitzur, 116, fig. 307).

The circumstance that the two openings are part of one and the same structure explains the proximity of the apparatus to walls for extra stability.

Kelso takes → אַח, → כִּירַיִם and → תַֹּנּוּר together as ‘the stove family’: ‘All three may be used in holding up a cooking-pot so as to concentrate its heat’ (Kelso, CVOT, 20 [No. 45]).

7. Conclusion

A.1 Already Gesenius (TPC) gives both possible translations for כִּירַיִם: focus, ‘hearth’, and fornax coquinaria, ‘cooking furnace, stove’ (cf. BDB and DCH). Since in Lev. 11:35 כִּירַיִם is placed next to תַֹּנּוּר ‘oven’ (for baking), the interpretation ‘stove’ (for cooking) commends itself (cf. Baentsch, Jastrow, Kellermann, Cornelius and others; the German ‘Kochherd’ combines both meanings). Although כִּירַיִם is a hapax legomenon in the TeNaKh, whereas → תַֹּנּוּר is much more frequent, its presence in several Judaic sources including Qumran might indicate that it was a fairly common heating device for the upper classes, among them the priests. After all, a stove with two burners allows for more sophisticated cooking. As it could be smashed into pieces, it must have been made of clay (Dalman).

The rabbinic tradition, including the Targum, and followed by the Peshiṭta, argues in favour of the rendering ‘double cooking-stove’. Archaeological finds seem to confirm the existence of such a cooking device which was placed against a wall or in a corner for greater stability. As a cooking-stove or furnace it is clearly distinguished from its cognate → כּוּר, which has its home in the forge (smelting oven, furnace for metal). There is no evidence for a tripod, as suggested by LXX and Vg.

Bibliography

Boling 1975: R.G. Boling, Judges (AncB, 6A), Garden City 1975 --

Levine 1989: B.A. Levine, The JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus, New York 1989.

Milgrom, Leviticus (AncB, 3/1), New York 1991

Zimmern 1917: H. Zimmern, Akkadische Fremdwörter, Leipzig ²1917, 32.