The History of Iron in Ancient Israel

See Dan Levene and Beno Rothenberg, A Metallurgical Gemara: Metals in the Jewish Sources (London: IAMS, 2007).

Editor’s note: For more on this story, and the place of metals in the purity laws there, see Zev Farber, “Elazar Speaks Once in the Torah: Why Does He Interrupt Moses?” TheTorah (2017).

Editor’s note: On the connection between Kenites and Midianites in the Bible through the story of Moses’ father-in-law, see Zev Farber, “Moses’ Father-in-Law: Kenite or Midianite?” TheTorah (2015).

Note that in Biblical Hebrew, the word neḥoshet (נְחֹשֶׁת) can mean either copper or bronze, making it difficult to know which is intended without further contextual clues.

For a discussion of Cain as the Kenite ancestor, see James L. Kugel, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now (New York: Free Press, 2007), 63–66.

Editor’s note: On the potential relationships among the Qurayya, the Midianites, and the Kenites, see Israel Knohl, “YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning of the Name,” TheTorah (2019).

For a discussion of silver usage, focusing on the Bronze and Iron ages, see Tzilla Eshel, “How Silver Was Used for Payment,” TheTorah.com (2018).

A metal alloy contains a combination of metals or of a metal with one or more other elements. Prior to the introduction of tin, for example, an earlier process produced bronze by combining copper and arsenic, which occurs naturally in some copper ores.

James D. Muhly, “How Iron Technology Changed the Ancient World—and Gave the Philistines a Military Edge,” Biblical Archaeology Review 8.6 (1982): 42–54.

At the height of its power in the 14^th century, its territory extended from the northern Levant, across much of Anatolia, and into northern Mesopotamia.

Editor’s note: For a discussion of these poetic praises of the land in Deuteronomy, see David Frankel, “The Good Land of Israel,” TheTorah (2017).

Perhaps they were taking part in the Mediterranean trade that was controlled by the Phoenicians during the Iron Age.

The production process (entailing the bloomery process for smelting) caused an immense loss of iron.

Michael R. Notis, Vincent C. Pigott, Patrick E. McGovern, K.H. Liu, and C.P. Swann. “The Metallurgical Technology: The Archaeometallurgy of the Iron IA Steel,” in The Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages of Central Transjordan: The Baq’ah Valley Project, 1977–1981, ed. Patrick E. McGovern (Philadelphia: University Museum, 1986), 272–278.

Xander A. Veldhuijzen and Thilo Rehren, “Slags and the City: Early Iron Production at Tell Hammeh, Jordan, and Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel,” in Metals and Mines: Studies in Archaeometallurgy, ed. Susan La Niece, D. R. Hook, and Paul T. Craddock (London: Archetype, 2007), 189–201.

In addition to the examples from Deuteronomy and 2 Samuel, Jeremiah 15:12 mentions iron and copper from the north—הֲיָרֹעַ בַּרְזֶל בַּרְזֶל מִצָּפוֹן וּנְחֹשֶׁת, “Can iron break iron and bronze?—though the passage may refer to the weaponry of the Babylonians (Menahem Bolle, Jeremiah, Daat Miqra [Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1983], 200).

Yehuda Kiel, II Samuel, Daat Miqra (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1981), 427–428.

Jane C. Waldbaum, “Bimetallic Objects from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Question of the Dissemination of Iron,” in Early Metallurgy in Cyprus, 4000–500 B.C., ed. James D. Muhly, Robert Maddin, and Vassos Karageorghis V (Nicosia: Pierides Foundation, 1982), 325–350.

Nethanel, L. Erb-Satullo, “The innovation and adoption of iron in the ancient Near East,” Journal of Archaeological Research, 27.4 (2019): 557–607.

Joshua confirms the problem of Canaanite chariots in v. 18.

See also v. 13.

Robert Drews, “The ‘Chariots of Iron’ of Joshua and Judges,” JSOT 45 (1989): 15–23.

See, e.g., Marian H. Feldman and Caroline Sauvage, “Objects of Prestige? Chariots in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean and Near East,” Ägypten und Levante/Egypt and the Levant 20 (2010): 67–181.

Alla Rabinovich, Naama Yahalom-Mack, Yosef Garfinkel, Saar Ganor, and Michael G. Hasel, “The Metal Assemblage from Early Iron Age IIA Khirbet Qeiyafa and Its Implications for the Inception of Iron Production and Use,” Bulletin of the American Schools for Oriental Research 382 (2019): 89–110.

The answer would serve as an indication of the degree of control exercised over iron production by the central authorities, including the control of weapons production. Cutting-edge scientific analysis is currently developing a method which would enable matching iron objects to their ore’s source. This will have important implications for our ability to examine the politics and economics behind the control over ore sources in the Iron Age in the land of Israel, enriching our understanding of the geo-politics and socio-economic interaction between the Israelite and Judean kingdoms and their neighbors at this time. Michael Brauns, Naama Yahalom-Mack, Ivan Stepanov, Lee Sauder, Jake Keen, and A. Eliyahu-Behar, “Osmium Isotope Analysis as an Innovative Tool for Provenancing Ancient Iron: A Systematic Approach,” PLoS ONE 15.3 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229623.

Adi Eliyahu-Behar and Naama Yahalom-Mack, “Reevaluating Early Iron-working Skills in the Southern Levant through Microstructure Analysis,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 18 (2018): 447–462.

Also in Job,

^{איוב מ:יח} עֲצָמָיו אֲפִיקֵי נְחוּשָׁה גְּרָמָיו כִּמְטִיל בַּרְזֶל.

^{Job 40:18} His bones are like tubes of bronze, His limbs like iron rods.

We further see this same parallelism in the Deuteronomy verses quoted above.

Erez Ben-Yosef, Ron Shaar, Lisa Tauxe, and Hagay Ron, “A new chronological framework for Iron Age copper pro­duction at Timna (Israel),” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 367 (2012): 31–71. Tom E. Levy, Mohammad Najjar, and Erez Ben-Yosef, editors. New Insights into the Iron Age Archaeology of Edom, Southern Jordan. (Los Angeles: UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2014.) Editor’s note: See also Erez Ben-Yosef and Aaron Greener, “Edom’s Copper Mines in Timna: Their Significance in the 10th Century,” TheTorah (2018).

Nethanel, L. Erb-Satullo, “The innovation and adoption of iron in the ancient Near East,” Journal of Archaeological Research, 27.4 (2019): 557–607.

Editor’s note: For some discussion of bronze or copper decorative items in the Temple or Tabernacle, see David Frankel, “The Bronze Plating of the Altar: Numbers Versus Exodus,” TheTorah (2018); Raz Kletter, “Fire Pans in the Bible and Archaeology,” TheTorah (2019); Richard Lederman, “Nehushtan, the Copper Serpent: Its Origins and Fate,” TheTorah (2017).

Iron production remains, until recently, were almost never identified in archaeological sites. Perhaps their dull colour (particularly in contrast to the greenish remains of copper working), and the small size of some of these, are to be blamed. Recent excavations, studies, and publications have brought this evidence for iron production to the attention of scholars, further encouraging archaeologists to seek—and to find—such traces, especially with the use of micro-archaeological field methods, in various Iron Age sites, such as Hazor, Megiddo, Tel Rehov, Beth Shemesh and Tell es-Safi (Philistine Gath). Adi Eliyahu-Behar, Naama Yahalom-Mack, Sana Shilstein, Alex Zukerman, Cynthia Shafer-Elliott, Aren, M. Maeir, Elisabetta Boaretto, Israel Finkelstein, and Steve Weiner, “Iron and Bronze Production in Iron Age IIA Philistia: New Evidence from Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel,” Journal of Archaeological Science 39 (2012): 255–267; Naama Yahalom-Mack and Adi Eliyahu-Behar, “The Transition from Bronze to Iron in Canaan: Chronology, Technology and Context,” Radiocarbon 57 (2015): 285–305; Naama Yahalom-Mack, Adi Eliyahu-Behar, Mario A.S., Martin, Assaf Kleiman, Ruth Shahack-Gross, Robert D. Homsher, Yuval Gadot, and Israel Finkelstein, “Metalworking at Megiddo during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 76 (2017): 53–74.