METALS MENTIONED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



273 



Copper Symbolically. 



B.C. 1451. After coming down from Mount Sinai Moses 

 proclaimed to the assembly of the children of Israel, these are 

 the commandments, the statutes, and the precepts which the 

 Lord your God commanded to teach you, therefore thou shalt 

 keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his 

 ways and fear him, for the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a 

 good " land, whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou 

 mayest dig brass." (Dent, viii, 9.) 



Copper symbolically, erroneously rendered Steel in the 

 English translation. 



It is difficult to understand the reason why the word steel 

 has been erroneously applied in the following four passages 

 instead of brass (copper) in the English translation, the more 

 so as in two of the passages iron is likewise mentioned and 

 correctly rendered. In the Septuagint version the iron and 

 brass are clearly translated in both cases as crlSrjpos and ^aAvco?. 

 It is superfluous to add that copper swords and weapons were 

 used before iron ones. Even in the prehistoric lacustral 

 stations on the lake of Neuehatel, the weapons were of copper, 

 tempered almost as hard as steel, an art in which ancient 

 nations excelled, but which has been long lost, although 

 competent men have recently endeavoured to discover the 

 process. Moreover the Phoenicians, Romans, and other people 

 subsequently employed bronze, or copper alloyed with tin, but 

 brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, was a very late discovery, 

 the ores of zinc having been unknown to the ancients. Diodati 

 translates rame (copper) in the Italian version ; in Ostervald's 

 French version it is rendered airain, but in that of Martin it is 

 acier, in Jer. xv, 12, and in the other passages airain ; Luther 

 translates eherne, except in Jer., where he gives Erz, both which 

 words are employed sometimes for copper, and at other times 

 for bronze or brass ; in Dutch version stal (steel), except in 

 Jer., where it is rendered koper ; the Vulgate uses " ameus." 



Fine Copper, precious as Gold. 



Much conjecture arises as to what is here meant, and 

 nothing can be decided satisfactorily, for the description is 

 vague. 



B.C. circum 457. Before starting for Babylon at the end of 

 the captivity, to return to Jerusalem, Ezra separated twelve 



