Flint

FLINT

flint (challamish (Deuteronomy 8:15; 32:13; Job 28:9; Psalms 114:8), tsor (Exodus 4:25; Ezekiel 3:9), tser (Isaiah 5:28), tsur (Job 22:24; Psalms 89:43), tsurim (Joshua 5:2); (= kechlex "pebble"), kochlax (1 Maccabees 10:73)):

The word challamish signifies a hard stone, though not certainly flint, and is used as a figure for hardness in Isaiah 50:7, "Therefore have I set my face like a flint." A similar use of tsor is found in Ezekiel 3:9, "As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead," and Isaiah 5:28, "Their horses' hoofs shall be accounted as flint"; and of tsela` in Jeremiah 5:3, "They have made their faces harder than a rock." The same three words are used of the rock from which Moses drew water in the wilderness:

challamish (Deuteronomy 8:15; Psalms 114:8); tsur (Exodus 17:6; Deuteronomy 8:15; Psalms 78:20; Isaiah 48:21); cela` (Numbers 20:8; Nehemiah 9:15; Psalms 78:16).

Tsur and cela` are used oftener than challamish for great rocks and cliffs, but tsur is used also for flint knives in Exodus 4:25, "Then Zipporah took a flint (the King James Version "sharp stone"), and cut off the foreskin of her son," and in Joshua 5:2, "Yahweh said unto Joshua, Make thee knives of flint (the King James Version "sharp knives"), and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time." Surgical implements of flint were used by the ancient Egyptians, and numerous flint chippings with occasional flint implements are found associated with the remains of early man in Syria and Palestine. Flint and the allied mineral, chert, are found in great abundance in the limestone rocks of Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

See ROCK.

Alfred Ely Day