Leviticus 11:35 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ranges for pots— The scarcity of fewel occasions a particular management among the Eastern people, of which Rauwolff gives us the following account: "They make in their tents or houses a hole about a foot and a half deep, wherein they put their earthen pipkins or pots, with the meat in them, closed up, so that they are in the half above the middle: three fourth parts thereof they lay about with stones, and the other fourth part is left open, through which they fling in their dried dung, and also some small twigs and straws, when they can have them, which burn immediately, and give so great a heat, that the pot groweth as hot as if it stood in the middle of a lighted coal-heap; so that they boil their meat with a little fire quicker than we do ours with a great one on our hearths." Poole, in his Synopsis on the place, supposes the word translated ranges for pots, to signify an earthen pot to boil meat in, with a lid; and another commentator apprehends it to have had feet; but such vessels come under the direction given in the 33rd verse: nor does the original word, which requires its destruction, agree with these explications; for it does not signify to destroy by breaking to pieces as a vessel is broken, but by breaking down, as altars, houses, walls of cities, &c. are broken down; and perfectly suits with Rauwolff's description of the Eastern apparatus for boiling a pot, which, though not expressed in the happiest manner by his translation, yet is thus far sufficiently clear. "Three fourth parts thereof," says he, "they lay about with stones;" which little building this law required to be broken down. How clear is this! What idea our English translator of Leviticus designed to convey by the term ranges for pots, I do not well know; but something distinct from a pot was evidently designed: and though it might be thought strange that any thing of building should be used by those who lived such a flitting kind of life as the Israelites in the wilderness for the boiling of their pots, yet we find by Rauwolff, that the wandering Arabs at present make use of such an apparatus, and he gives us some description of it. See Observations, &c.