A Trained Professional XI: Strike While The Iron is Hot

The eleventh in a series about vocations in the Bible. The term Blacksmith as an occupational term covers all artificers and engravers of the metals. Blacksmiths. Men's men. A tough labor job but a fulfilling one. Without which ancient weapons wouldn't have been created. Kingdoms wouldn't have rose and therefore wouldn't have fallen. They helped forge, draw, bend and upset empires.

Some of the metals identified by name were gold, silver, brass (copper), iron, tin and lead (Numbers 31:22). The blacksmith's trade goes back to Tubal-Cain who is described as: 

“…the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.” (Genesis 4:22). 

In other words as a blacksmith capable of constructing agricultural, household and warlike articles he was the first creator of the proverbial plowshares and pruning-hooks mentioned in Isaiah 2:4.

The fearful havoc wrought by some of Tubal-Cain’s weapons are immortalized in "The Song of Lamech" (Genesis 4:23,24). From then on, the smith's art took precedence over all other occupations, since this vocation furnished the instruments necessary for advancing civilization. It also unfortunately hammered out the implements of war, conquest and death. These tools were capable of giving life or taking it away.

Metal work, carpentry, building and other useful arts were greatly developed before the Flood. All the vessels used in the Tabernacle involved an intricate and learned knowledge of every kind of handicraft, and great skill in the fashioning of all that was required (Exodus 25:10, 11, 17, 18; 31:4, 5).

We read of the goldsmith and the silversmith. These particular smiths were skillful in making ornaments for adornment, vessels and images (Genesis 24:22; 35:4). Then there is the copper smith or worker in brass (Genesis 4:22; 1 Kings 7:14, 45. Mention is also made of the ironsmith, or worker in iron (1 Samuel 13:19; 2 Chronicles 24:12; Isaiah 44:12). So highly were those smiths skilled in the manufacture of war weapons that conquerors removed them from a conquered nation to completely diminish them a military threats not unlike what the United States did with Werner Vo Braun and the Nazis V2 rocket program. Nebuchadnezzar was known to have done this to defeated people (2 Kings 24:14; Isaiah 44:12; 54:16; Jeremiah 24:1).

Smiths were also used for the making of helmets, breastplates, greaves, javelins, fetters, cult objects, plates and bars for city gates, various musical instruments, farming tools with iron fittings, flails, plowshares, coulters, mattocks, saws, chariots, swords, prison bars, household utensils like pots and pans and cauldrons and forks, pens and razors (Judges 16:21; 1 Samuel 2:13, 14; 13:19-21; 17:5-7; 2 Samuel 12:31; 1 Kings 7; 2 Kings 6:5;9:27; I Chronicles 15:19-24; Job 19:24; Psalms 105:18; 107:16; Isaiah 7:20;28:24, 27; 45:2; Jeremiah 17:1; 50:16;Ezekiel 4:3; 5:1; Amos 1:3). 

Some of these tasks moved beyond the proper understanding of smithing. Specialized processes and tools were necessary. We have references to smelting as early as Job 28:2 which was the oldest book in the Bible predating the authorship of the Torah/Pentateuch. We see the bellows identified for blowing the coals in the fire (Isaiah 54:16),and to the blacksmith who fashions heated iron into axes, and saws with his hammer (Joshua 17:15, 18; Isaiah41:7; 44:12; Jeremiah 6:29). We see tools for carving and engraving (1 Kings 6:29, 32-36),tongs (Isaiah 44:12), are among the implements a smith required.

As for agriculture, we can imagine how smiths plied their trade from place to place in order to repair farming implements, likely primitive forms of horseshoes and also household utensils, or to supply new ones. Archaeologists have found traces of an Israelite forge, complete with plowshares in the Palestine area (obviously predating the Palestinians). There are even Egyptian murals about the time of Exodus that represented two smiths working the bellows.

Special note should be made about the timing and chronology of metalworking and smithing too as science and archeology are often quick to disagree with the Bible until irrefutable proof from archeology is usually found to prove the Bible correct. Genesis intentionally mentions rapid human advancement in a matter-of-fact way when it comes to technology and creativity in the antediluvian (pre-Flood) world. Jabal develops domestication of animals and tents, Jubal also pioneered music. Tubal Cain forges metal tools (all within just a few generations). This is a rapid cultural progression, not a slow evolutionary development. God created the earth with mineral-rich soils(Deuteronomy 8:9, Job 28:2), allowing Adam’s descendants to craft metal instruments immediately. The Bible’s genealogical structure places Tubal Cain and Jubal, before the Flood, directly contradicting the secular “Stone, Bronze, Iron” age model.

Just because archeology can’t find the physical evidence doesn’t mean the Bible should be disregarded. If that was the case then nothing in the bible would be valid as most of it requires faith anyway. Why do these timelines matter? Historians based in an evolutionist mindset assert metallurgy emerged around 1500 BC, yet Genesis situates these technologies thousands of years earlier. Iron working therefore predates the Flood since Tubal Cain forged iron. As it turns out having investigated it in my studies…secular archaeology has in-fact uncovered copper and iron smelting work dating to the 5th millennium BC, confirming Scripture’s timeline.