Reference: Mortar (2)
Smith
Mortar.
Ge 11:3; Ex 1:14; Le 14:42,45; Isa 41:25; Eze 13:10-11,14-15; 22:28; Ne 3:14
The various compacting substances used in Oriental buildings appear to be --
1. Bitumen, as in the Babylonian structures;
2. Common mud or moistened clay;
3. A very firm cement compounded of sand, ashes and lime, in the proportions respectively of 1,2,3, well pounded, sometimes mixed and sometimes coated with oil, so as to form a surface almost impenetrable to wet or the weather. In Assyrian and also Egyptian brick buildings, stubble or straw, as hair or wool among ourselves, was added to increase the tenacity.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
And they shall say a man to his neighbor, Come, we will make bricks, and we will burn to a burning, and brick shall be to them for stone, and potter's clay shall be to them for potter's clay.
And they will embitter their lives by hard work in clay, and in bricks, and in all work in the field: all their work in which they made them serve by oppression.
And they took other stones and brought instead of these stones; and he shall take other clay and spread over the house.
And he tore down the house, and its stones, and its wood, and all the dust of the house: and he brought forth without the city, into an unclean place.
And the gate of the dung-hill held fast Malchiah the son of Rechab, chief of the circuit of the house of the vineyard; he will build it, and set up its doors, its bolts and its bars.
I roused up from the north, and he will come: from the rising of the sun he shall call upon my name: and he shall come upon prefects as clay, and as the potter will tread down the mud.
Because, and because they led my people astray, saying, Peace; and no peace; and he built a wall and they plastering it with plaster: Say to them plastering with plaster: And it shall fall: there was a violent rain poured out; and ye, O hailstones, shall fall; and the spirit of storms shall rend.
And I broke in pieces the wall which ye plastered with plaster, and I caused it to touch the earth, and its foundation was uncovered and it fell, and ye were consumed in its midst: and ye knew that I am Jehovah. And I finished my wrath upon the wall, and upon those plastering it with plaster, and saying to you, No wall, and none plastering it;
And her prophets plastered plaster upon them, seeing vanity, and divining to them falsehood, saying Thus said the Lord Jehovah; and Jehovah spoke not