The Hebrew word oben (related to eben, stone) refers to the two stones of a potter's wheel or a birthstool. The dual form suggests two flat stones or disk-like surfaces connected together.
The potter's wheel appears only in Exodus 1:16, where Pharaoh commands the Hebrew midwives to kill male infants on the birthstool. The midwives' defiance — choosing to fear God rather than Pharaoh — becomes one of the great acts of faithful civil disobedience in Scripture. The birthstool meant for death becomes the instrument of Israel's survival. Later, Jeremiah's vision of the potter and clay (Jeremiah 18) uses this same technology to speak of God's sovereign reshaping of nations.