the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Encyclopedias
Coal
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or It is generally assumed that, in those numerous passages of our version in which the word coal occurs, charcoal, or some other kind of artificial fuel, is to be understood; at all events, that the word has not its English meaning. The idea is founded upon the supposition that fossil coal was not known to the ancients as an article of fuel, and especially to the ancient inhabitants of Syria, whose country it is generally imagined did not produce it. But the existence of coal in Syria is now placed beyond a doubt. Many indications of coal occur in the Lebanon Mountains; the seams of this mineral even protrude through the superincumbent strata in various directions. At Cornale, eight hours from Beirut, at 2500 feet above the level of the sea, where the coal seams are three feet in thickness, a mine is actually being worked by order of Mohammed Ali, in which more than 100 men are employed. The coal is of good quality, and mixed with iron pyrites. In 1837 the quantity of coal extracted was 14,700 cantars of 217 okes, each making about 4000 tons. A furnace for smelting the ore and a railroad to convey the coals to Beirut were then in contemplation.
It appears from the testimony of Theophrastus that pit-coal was used by artificers in Greece, nearly 300 years B.C., and the well-ascertained existence of coal in Syria, emerging to the very surface, may, in conjunction with some particulars respecting the mention of coal in the Scriptures, tend to show the possibility that coal, in the proper sense, was not wholly unknown or unemployed by the ancient Hebrews, etc.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Coal'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/c/coal.html.
