Fork

A three-pronged metal tool, likely used for handling meat.

Copper alloy fork, late 3rd–early 2nd millennium BCE, central Asia
Copper alloy fork, late 3rd–early 2nd millennium BCE, central Asia (Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons) Fork

About Fork

The fork was used in the Tabernacle and Temple to turn sacrificial victims on the altar or to remove them. Its exact form is unknown, but it may have resembled a hook or a kind of two-pronged fork.

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Key References

Exodus 27:3

Make all its utensils of bronze—its pots for removing ashes, its shovels, its sprinkling bowls, its meat forks, and its firepans.

Numbers 4:14

and place on it all the vessels used to serve there: the firepans, meat forks, shovels, and sprinkling bowls—all the equipment of the altar. They are to spread over it a covering of fine leather and insert the poles.

1 Samuel 2:13

or for the custom of the priests with the people. When any man offered a sacrifice, the servant of the priest would come with a three-pronged meat fork while the meat was boiling

All Scripture References (7)

Exodus (2)
Exodus 27:3

Make all its utensils of bronze—its pots for removing ashes, its shovels, its sprinkling bowls, its meat forks, and its firepans.

Exodus 38:3

He made all the altar’s utensils of bronze—its pots, shovels, sprinkling bowls, meat forks, and firepans.

Numbers (1)
Numbers 4:14

and place on it all the vessels used to serve there: the firepans, meat forks, shovels, and sprinkling bowls—all the equipment of the altar. They are to spread over it a covering of fine leather and insert the poles.

1 Samuel (2)
1 Samuel 2:13

or for the custom of the priests with the people. When any man offered a sacrifice, the servant of the priest would come with a three-pronged meat fork while the meat was boiling

1 Samuel 2:14

and plunge it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or cooking pot. And the priest would claim for himself whatever the meat fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.

1 Chronicles (1)
1 Chronicles 28:17

the weight of the pure gold for the forks, sprinkling bowls, and pitchers; the weight of each gold dish; the weight of each silver bowl;

2 Chronicles (1)
2 Chronicles 4:16

and the pots, shovels, meat forks, and all the other articles. All these objects that Huram-abi made for King Solomon for the house of the LORD were of polished bronze.