Tile
Fausset's Bible Dictionary [1]
Ezekiel 4:1, a sun-dried "brick," the same as is translated "brick" in Genesis 11:3. For "pourtray " translated "engrave." Bricks with designs engraven on them are found still in ancient Mesopotamian cities. Related to these are the tablets, of which many have been found in the Assyrian and Babylonian rains and mounds. Some of these bear historical inscriptions and narrate the annals of the various reigns; others are known as report tablets, and are of the character of letters or dispatches on various military, political, and social subjects; again a third class are such as the Egibi tablets, a series of financial and contract records belonging to a family of that name, the particular attestations to which for a period of nearly 200 years, from 677 B.C. to 455 B.C., reflect as in a mirror the principal changes in dynastic and imperial affairs. It is greatly owing to the light derived from these various classes of tablets that the chronology and events of history in Western Asiatic and Biblical countries have within the last few years been so greatly elucidated; and further revelations are continually being obtained.
Webster's Dictionary [2]
(1): ( v. t.) To protect from the intrusion of the uninitiated; as, to tile a Masonic lodge.
(2): ( v. t.) Fig.: To cover, as if with tiles.
(3): ( n.) A draintile.
(4): ( n.) A stiff hat.
(5): ( v. t.) To cover with tiles; as, to tile a house.
(6): ( n.) A small slab of marble or other material used for flooring.
(7): ( n.) A small, flat piece of dried earth or earthenware, used to cover vessels in which metals are fused.
(8): ( n.) A plate of metal used for roofing.
(9): ( n.) A plate, or thin piece, of baked clay, used for covering the roofs of buildings, for floors, for drains, and often for ornamental mantel works.
American Tract Society Bible Dictionary [3]
A broad and thin brick, usually made of fine clay, and hardened in the fire. Such tiles were very common in the region of the Euphrates and Tigris, (See Ezekiel 4:1 . Great numbers of similar rude sketches of places, as well as of animals and men, are found on the tiles recently exhumed from the ancient mounds of Assyria, interspersed among the wedge-shaped inscriptions with which one side of the tile is usually crowded. At Nineveh Layard found a large chamber stored full of such inscribed tiles, like a collection of historical archives, Ezra 6:1 . They are usually about a foot square, and three inches thick.
King James Dictionary [4]
Tile, n. L. tegula tego, to cover Eng. to deck.
1. A plate or piece of baked clay, used for covering the roofs of buildings.
The pins for fastening tiles are made of oak or fir.
2. In metallurgy, a small flat piece of dried earth, used to cover vessels in which metals are fused. 3. A piece of baked clay used in drains.
Tile, To cover with tiles as, to tile a house.
1. To cover, as tiles.
The muscle, sinew and vein.
Which tile this house, will come again.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [5]
(לְבֵנָה, lebenâ h, so called from the whitish clay), a brick ( Ezekiel 4:1), as elsewhere rendered. (See Brick); (See Tiling). The above passage illustrates the use of baked clay for the delineation of figures and written characters among the ancient nations, especially the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. Not only were ordinary building bricks stamped with the name of the founder of the edifice, as well as with other devices, but clay (or stone) "cylinders," as they are now called, covered with the most minute writing; were deposited in the corners of Assyrian and Babylonian buildings, giving the history of the kings who erected the palaces. (See Nineveh).
But the most striking illustration of the prophet's delineators is afforded by the recent discovery of whole libraries of Assyrian literature in the form of small inscribed tablets of clay, which contain writing and pictorial representations of the most interesting character. When the clay was in a soft, moist state, in its mould or frame, the characters were put upon it, perhaps in some instances by a stamp, but usually by means of a sharp-edged bronze style about a foot long, each character being traced separately by hand, as we use a pen. After the completion of the writing or pictures, the clay was baked, and such was the perfection of the manufacture that many of these articles have been preserved from decay for three thousand years. They vary in color, owing, as some suppose, to the varying length of time they were in the kiln, while others think that some coloring matter must have been mixed with the clay. They are bright brown, pale yellow pink, red, and a very dark tint nearly black. Usually the cylinders found are of a pale yellow, and the tablets a light red or pink. Some of them are unglazed, and others are coated with a hard white enamel. It is from these long-lost records that such details are in process of decipherment as are given in Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis, and other works of recent Assyriology.
