The Hebrew word machtah refers to a firepan, censer, or snuff dish — a vessel used to carry burning coals or incense. It derives from the root chathah (to snatch up coals). These vessels were essential implements in the tabernacle and temple worship, used by priests to offer incense before the LORD.
The machtah became the center of one of the most dramatic confrontations in the Old Testament: Korah's rebellion (Numbers 16). When 250 men challenged Moses and Aaron's authority by taking censers to offer incense, God consumed them with fire. Their censers were then hammered into a covering for the altar as a perpetual warning. Aaron also used his machtah to stop the plague by standing between the living and the dead — a powerful picture of priestly intercession and atonement that foreshadows Christ's mediatorial work.