Coal

A live coal changes a man in Isaiah 6. Isaiah has seen the LORD and confessed his unclean lips when a seraph flies to him “having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar.” Touching his mouth, it means “thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” A quieter coal sits in 2 Samuel 14, where a woman tells David that her relatives would “quench my coal which is left,” her last hope of a family name. One coal cleanses, and the other is all that remains.

3 verses

2 Samuel

2 Samuel 14:7

And, behold, the whole family is risen against thine handmaid, and they said, Deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him, for the life of his brother whom he slew; and we will destroy the heir also: and so they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth.

Isaiah

Isaiah 6:6

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:

Isaiah 6:7

And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

It is by no means certain that the Hebrews were acquainted with mineral coal, although it is found in Syria. Their common fuel was dried dung of animals and wood charcoal. Two different words are found in Hebrew to denote coal, both occurring in Prov. 26:21, “As coal [Heb. peham; i.e., “black coal”] is to burning coal [Heb. gehalim].” The latter of these words is used in Job 41:21; Prov. 6:28; Isa. 44:19. The words “live coal” in Isa. 6:6 are more correctly “glowing stone.” In Lam. 4:8 the expression “blacker than a coal” is literally rendered in the margin of the Revised Version “darker than blackness.” “Coals of fire” (2 Sam. 22:9, 13; Ps. 18:8, 12, 13, etc.) is an expression used metaphorically for lightnings proceeding from God. A false tongue is compared to “coals of juniper” (Ps. 120:4; James 3:6). “Heaping coals of fire on the head” symbolizes overcoming evil with good. The words of Paul (Rom. 12:20) are equivalent to saying, “By charity and kindness thou shalt soften down his enmity as surely as heaping coals on the fire fuses the metal in the crucible.”

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From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

The first and most frequent use of the word rendered coal is a live ember, burning fuel. (Proverbs 26:21) In (2 Samuel 22:9,13) "coals of fire" are put metaphorically for the lightnings proceeding from God. (Psalms 18:8,12,13; 140:10) In (Proverbs 26:21) fuel not yet lighted is clearly signified. The fuel meant in the above passage is probably charcoal, and not coal in our sense of the word.