Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
(oven). Oven (Gen. 15:17; Neh. 3:11). Smelting furnace or lime-kiln (Gen. 19:28; Ex. 9:8; Isa. 33:12). Refining furnace (Prov. 17:3). Furnace like a brick-kiln (Dan. 3:15-27).
Concise Bible Dictionary:
Furnaces were used for various purposes, as smelting the crude metal, and for crucibles to refine the metal; for lime and bricks; and as an oven (Gen. 19:28; Ex. 9:8, 10; Prov. 17:3).
Ferroalloy in electric arched furnace.
The fiery furnace in Babylon must have been very large for four persons to have walked therein. It may have been the furnace they used for their bricks (Dan. 3:6-26). The furnace is used figuratively for the oppression of Egypt, out of which God delivered the Israelites (Deut. 4:20); and for the afflictions God afterward brought them into to purify them from their idolatry and sin (Ezek. 22:18, 22). In the N. T. the furnace of fire refers to the place of eternal punishment (Matt. 13:42, 50).
Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew Words:
Meaning:
from an unused root meaning properly, to dig through; a pot or furnace (as if excavated)