In the above verse we are talking literally Egypt. God had a name for this country -- the Iron Furnace.
Today we use Egypt as a spiritual name for the world (as in the world's system).
It is pretty significant when God names something. I have read over this verse many times but it didn't hit me until this morning. I am not sure what it really means, the depth of it.
What is an iron furnace? Does this mean where you throw iron in the fire? Throwing Iron into the fire can make it into steel (I think).
To be thrown into a furnace means you are trapped, you can't get out. What is thrown into a furnace is objects to be changed by the desire of the one in charge. So, thinking along this line, we could say the the world system uses people, puts you in places you can't get out of, changes you to the form it wants you to be.
Only God can get us out of the iron furnace. As God took out a nation from inside another nation, He can take us out of the system that wants to corrupt us.
Before someone misinterprets the above words, let me share something Jesus said in John 17:15: "I do not ask Thee (the Father) to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one."
God takes us out of the world's system spiritually -- takes the claws of the system, the power it has over the flesh -- takes all that away. We are free! Then we live within this world on God's terms, not on the world system's terms or the enemy's terms.