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Precious stones and metals
Bronze and copper
Hebrew nechoshet · bronze is copper alloyed with tin · “brass” in the KJV
Copper was one of the first metals people used, known in native form before 4000 BC. Alloyed with tin, it gives bronze, which is harder, and from about 3000 BC copper and tin were important goods of trade. Deuteronomy describes a land “whose hills are ready to be mined for copper” (Deuteronomy 8:9), and Edom, rich in copper, came under David’s rule (2 Samuel 8:14). Hebrew has one word for copper and bronze. The KJV calls it “brass”, but tools of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (c. 2000–1200 BC) prove to be bronze; brass came later.
For Solomon’s temple Huram of Tyre, skilled in “every kind of bronze work”, cast pots, shovels, bowls and much more in clay molds in the Jordan plain between Succoth and Zarethan (1 Kings 7:13–14, 45–46). Bronze made armor and weapons: Goliath had a bronze helmet, coat of mail and leg armor (1 Samuel 17:5–6). Polished bronze rich in tin made mirrors, and the tabernacle basin was made from the women’s mirrors (Exodus 38:8). In New Testament times small coins were bronze, among them the widow’s two coins (Mark 12:42), and Paul names “Alexander the coppersmith” (2 Timothy 4:14).
Key verses
a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper.Now King Solomon sent to bring Huram from Tyre. He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a craftsman in bronze. Huram had great skill, understanding, and knowledge for every kind of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and carried out all his work.and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. All the articles that Huram made for King Solomon in the house of the LORD were made of burnished bronze. The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.and he had a bronze helmet on his head. He wore a bronze coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels, and he had armor of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders.Next he made the bronze basin and its stand from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.Then one poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amounted to a small fraction of a denarius.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Minerals* and Metals; Minerals* and Metals: Specific Metals; Coppersmith; Bronze; Copper
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
