the Berasit Hebrew Dictionary

Several metals are mentioned in the ancient Hebrew texts. Traditional interpretation typically yields the following meanings:

• nehes = bronze
• berezel = iron
• yeperet = lead
• bedil = tin
• pez, ketem, and zeheb supposedly all mean “gold”
• kecep = silver
• brass
• copper

Metal processing techniques mentioned include:

• xeq = casting/molding

Iron and bronze often appears in the texts alongside each other. This juxtaposition creates a fascinating phenomenon because of how it ties in with archaeological evidence.

merge the rest of this page into metallurgy.

Generally, ancient cultures used bronze before iron. This is due to the fact that iron has a significantly higher melting point and therefore depends on more advanced kiln technologies to achieve the required temperatures. Pinning down an exact date for when these technologies emerged is dependent on archaeological evidence. A Serbian paper published in 2013 reports that the tin-alloy bronzes discovered in the area date as early as 6500 years ago¹⁾. There is evidence of iron work in northern Syria dating back as early as 4500 years ago²⁾, but the shift from “bronze age” to “iron age” when iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys occurred at various times in different regions, but is typically dated from around 4000 years ago.

Genesis 4 crediting Tubal-Cain as the first worker in both bronze and iron presents a bit of a dilemma. The inclusion of iron in this claim could be interpreted to indicate that the narrative of Genesis 4 took place at the beginning of the iron age transition, or possibly as early as 4500 years ago. However, if Tubal-Cain is truly to be credited as the first bronze-worker, the archaeological evidence pushes his date back to 6500 years ago at the latest (but does not necessarily rule out a much earlier date).

One problem with this interpretation is brought up by Deuteronomy 8:9, which speaks of “a land in which without scarcity you will eat bread, nothing you will lack any a land whose stones [are] iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper”

Notice that in this particular verse, 'neheset' gets translated as copper instead of bronze. This is because it is not possible to dig bronze out of a hill. Bronze does not occur in nature but must be refined and smelted from copper and tin.

We might need to adjust our assumptions of which words refer to which metals and/or alloys.