Brass

Brass in the King James Version consistently mistranslates the Hebrew nechoshet and Greek chalkos, which denote copper or bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) rather than the zinc-based alloy that is modern brass. True brass was not known in antiquity until well into the Christian era. Bronze—harder and more workable than pure copper—was the dominant metal of the ancient Near East for weapons, tools, and decorative objects during the Bronze Age. The mountains of Deuteronomy 8:9 from which bronze could be dug refer to the copper deposits of the Arabah and Sinai regions.

Bronze figures prominently in the tabernacle and temple furnishings: the altar of burnt offering, its utensils, the bronze sea, and the ten lavers in Solomon's temple were all of cast bronze (Ex. 27:1–8; 1 Kings 7:13–46). Armor and weapons of bronze appear throughout the warrior narratives (1 Sam. 17:5–6; 2 Sam. 22:35). The symbolic use of bronze as a figure for hardness, endurance, or divine power appears in descriptions of the divine warrior (Ezek. 1:7; Rev. 1:15) and in the covenant curses, which threaten that the heavens will become bronze—withholding rain—if Israel is disobedient (Deut. 28:23).