A cooking fire and a king’s fire sit side by side in Scripture. Abraham tells Sarah to hurry: “make cakes upon the hearth” for three visitors (Genesis 18:6). In Jeremiah 36 a king sits in his winter house with “a fire on the hearth burning before him”, and as the scroll of Jeremiah’s words is read he cuts it up and drops it in the flames, while neither he nor his servants are afraid. One hearth serves strangers, the other tries to burn a message. Read Jeremiah 36:22-24, then Genesis 18.
6 verses
And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.
And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.
And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.
Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him.
And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.
Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
Heb. ah (Jer. 36:22, 23; R.V., “brazier”), meaning a large pot like a brazier, a portable furnace in which fire was kept in the king’s winter apartment.
Heb. kiyor (Zech. 12:6; R.V., “pan”), a fire-pan.
Heb. moqed (Ps. 102:3; R.V., “fire-brand”), properly a fagot.
Heb. yaqud (Isa. 30:14), a burning mass on a hearth.
William Smith, 1884
One way of baking much practiced in the East is to place the dough on an iron plate, either laid on or supported on legs above the vessel sunk in the ground, which forms the oven. The cakes baked "on the hearth" (Genesis 18:6) were probably baked in the existing Bedouin manner, on hot stones covered with ashes. The "hearth" of King Jehoiakim’s winter palace, (Jeremiah 36:23) was possibly a pan or brazier of charcoal. From this we see that the significance of the Hebrew words translated hearth is not the same as with us.