Copper

Copper and its alloy bronze are among the working metals of the biblical world. The UPDV preserves both terms — "copper" for the raw mineral mined from the land, "bronze" for the worked metal of weapons, fittings, sanctuary furnishings, and architectural members.

Copper in the Land

The promise of the land of Canaan includes a description of its mineral wealth: "a land in which you will eat bread without scarceness, you will not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper" (Deut 8:9). The metal is named here in its raw form — something to be dug from hillsides, an asset of the territory itself.

Bronze in the Sanctuary

Once worked, the metal serves the worship system. Among the offerings collected for the wilderness sanctuary are "gold, and silver, and bronze" (Exod 25:3). The fittings of the tent are made from it as well: "And you will make fifty clasps of bronze, and put the clasps into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be one" (Exod 26:11).

The temple in Jerusalem extends the use of bronze on a much larger scale. Hiram, the master craftsman, is described as "the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with the wisdom and the understanding and the knowledge to work all works in bronze. And he came to King Solomon, and wrought all his work" (1 Kgs 7:14).

Bronze in Royal Service and Loss

Bronze becomes a marker of royal substitution and royal loss. After Shishak strips Solomon's gold shields from the temple, "King Rehoboam made in their stead shields of bronze, and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard, that kept the door of the king's house" (2 Chr 12:10). The downgrade from gold to bronze tells its own story.

The Babylonian capture of Jerusalem strips the temple's bronze: "And the pillars of bronze that were in the house of Yahweh, and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the house of Yahweh, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the bronze of them to Babylon" (2 Kgs 25:13). The same metal that built the sanctuary is broken up and hauled away.

Bronze in War and Diplomacy

In the Maccabean period the metal continues to serve both military and political ends. At Beth-zechariah, "they distributed the beasts by the legions: and there stood by every elephant a thousand men in coats of mail, and with helmets of brass on their heads: and five hundred horsemen set in order were chosen for every beast" (1 Macc 6:35).

Bronze also carries written agreements. The treaty between Judas and Rome is "the copy of the writing that they wrote back, engraved in tablets of brass, and sent to Jerusalem, that it might be with them there for a memorial of the peace and alliance" (1 Macc 8:22). The choice of medium signals durability: a memorial meant to outlast its parties.