Tin

Tin appears in the UPDV as one of the named base metals of the ancient near-eastern smelting and trade economy, listed among the fire-durable spoil-metals, named as a constituent of Israel's metallurgical figure for impurity, and traded into Tyre as a supplied cargo.

Among the Fire-Durable Metals

After the Midian campaign, the purification statute enumerates the metals that pass through fire as spoil: "nevertheless the gold, and the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin, and the lead" (Num 31:22). Tin sits between iron and lead in the six-metal fire-pass list.

Tin in the Smelting Figure

The smelting figure carries the freight of tin as alloy-impurity. In the Isaiah oracle, the divine purge removes both the dross and the tin from the people figured as silver: "and I will turn my hand on you, and thoroughly purge away your dross, and will take away all your tin" (Isa 1:25). Ezekiel develops the same figure at length. The house of Israel is exhibited as the slag of the smelting furnace: "Son of Man, the house of Israel has become dross to me: all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are the dross of silver" (Ezek 22:18). The gathering for the melt repeats the metal-list: "As they gather silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you⁺ in my anger and in my wrath, and I will lay you⁺ there, and melt you⁺" (Ezek 22:20).

Tin in the Tyrian Trade

Tin is also a named trade-metal in the Tyre oracle. Tarshish supplies the four-metal cargo: "Tarshish was your merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for your wares" (Ezek 27:12). Tin sits as the third item in the precious-and-base-metal cluster, between iron and lead, entered into Tyre's wares-inventory.