Tin

Tin (Hebrew bedil) was one of the metals known to ancient Israel, listed alongside gold, silver, bronze, iron, and lead (Num. 31:22). As a component of bronze — an alloy of copper and tin — it was essential to ancient metallurgy from the Bronze Age onward. Tin was traded over long distances; the Phoenicians were particularly important traders of tin, obtaining it from Britain (the Cassiterides or "tin islands") and from Iberian Spain through their Mediterranean commercial networks.

Ezekiel employs tin in his metallurgical imagery: Israel is compared to a smelting furnace in which tin, lead, and other base metals are mixed with silver (Ezek. 22:18-20), conveying moral corruption. Ezekiel 27:12 mentions Tarshish as a source of tin traded with Tyre. The relative scarcity of tin compared to copper and iron in the ancient Near East gave Phoenician and later Greek traders a strategic commercial advantage.