shovel

An implement for clearing ashes from the tabernacle’s outer altar. The altar shovels were made of copper (Exod 27:3; Exod 38:3). The ashes were scooped up in them and apparently placed in copper pots (Exod 27:3), which were then carried outside the camp and emptied at the cultic ash dump (Lev 6:10-11). Solomon’s Temple also had copper shovels for its burnt-offering altar (1Kgs 7:40; 1Kgs 7:45; 2Chr 4:11; 2Chr 4:16). When Jerusalem fell, the Babylonians took these as spoil (2Kgs 25:14; Jer 52:18).