Fuller

A fuller was a craftsman who cleaned, thickened, and sometimes bleached newly woven cloth by trampling or beating it with the feet or clubs in water mixed with a cleansing agent. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon fullian (to whiten). In ancient Palestine, the fuller's work required large quantities of water and the use of alkaline substances — alkali, natron, white clay, or the soapwort plant — to remove grease and impurities from raw wool and newly woven fabric. The trade was odorous enough that fullers' workshops were typically located outside city walls, near water sources.

Fuller's Field (or the Fuller's Field) near Jerusalem, located beside the conduit of the Upper Pool (2 Kings 18:17; Isaiah 7:3; 36:2), was likely the site where fullers stretched cleaned cloth to dry and bleach in the sun. It was at this location that Isaiah met Ahaz during the Syro-Ephraimite crisis, delivering the famous Immanuel prophecy (Isaiah 7:14). Malachi 3:2 describes the coming of the LORD's messenger as "like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap," using the fuller's purifying work as a metaphor for the purifying judgment that will precede the new covenant era. Mark 9:3 notes that Jesus's garments at the Transfiguration were "exceeding white; so as no fuller on earth can white them."