opheret

• It is picked for sheer heaviness, the metal a writer reaches for when something must sink or stay put: Egypt's soldiers go down in the sea like it, and a heavy disc of it is clapped over the mouth of a basket so what is inside cannot get out.Exo 15:10Zec 5:8Zec 5:7
• Because it melts easily and then hardens in place, it is poured into letters cut in rock so a record will last, which is why Job wishes his words were set down with it.Job 19:24
• In the refiner's fire it is the working metal that is fed to the flames and used up in the attempt to pull silver out of the ore, not the impurity being pulled out.Jer 6:29

• Both belong to the standard short list of hard metals, alongside gold, silver, bronze, and iron, that can be passed through fire to be made clean rather than washed with water.Num 31:22
• Both are named together among the base metals thrown into the furnace when silver is melted down, and Ezekiel uses that whole heap as a picture of a people who are worth far less than they claim.Ezk 22:18Ezk 22:20
• Both were ordinary cargo with a market price, shipped in from distant ports and swapped for goods in the same breath as silver and iron.Ezk 27:12

• This is the cheap metal mixed into silver that a refiner has to strip out, so it stands for what has to go: when God promises to purge his people, it is rendered "alloy" or "dross", the thing burned away rather than the thing kept.Isa 1:25
• It carries the harder puzzle of the two. In the vision of the temple's rebuilding it is joined to the word for stone in a phrase that occurs only once in the whole Hebrew Bible, naming something held up in Zerubbabel's hand, and readers have taken that object four different ways: a builder's weighted line for checking a wall, an inscribed tin plaque of the kind buried under a new building, a stone set apart, or the chief stone of the finished work. The familiar rendering "plumb line" is one of those guesses rather than the plain sense of the words, and nothing in the verses about lead leaves a reader this unsure of what is meant.Zec 4:10

• Lead is the heaviest thing a writer can name, so it becomes the picture of sinking: Pharaoh's army goes down in the water and does not come back up.Exo 15:10
• Its sheer weight is put to work as a lid, sealing a container shut and holding down what is inside.Zec 5:7Zec 5:8
• Lead is the metal that gets used up in the fire. In the refining picture it burns away with the impurities instead of surviving as the prize.Jer 6:29

• Both belong to the standard run of metals a text lists when it names everything that comes off a smelter or crosses a trader's table, alongside silver, bronze, and tin.Num 31:22Ezk 27:12
• Both are thrown into the furnace together when a prophet pictures God putting his people through the fire to see what they are worth.Ezk 22:18Ezk 22:20
• Both serve the same wish for a record that outlasts the writer, the hard metal cutting the letters into rock and the soft one filling them so the words stay readable.Job 19:24

• Iron is the metal of a cutting edge. It is what makes a tool or a weapon able to bite: the axe head that flies off its handle, the head of a soldier's spear, the blade one worker sharpens against another.Deu 19:51Sa 17:7Pro 27:17
• Iron stands for strength that will not bend, so writers reach for it to picture something unbreakable or someone stubborn: a neck that will not turn, a fortified pillar, a rod that shatters what it strikes.Isa 48:4Jer 1:18Psa 2:9
• Iron is what holds a prisoner. Fetters, chains, and barred gates are made of it, and it becomes a picture of captivity itself.Psa 105:18Psa 149:8Psa 107:16
• Iron is dug out of the ground as a bulk resource and piled up in quantity for building projects, which lead never is.Deu 8:9Job 28:21Ch 22:14

• Its defining quality is sheer weight. Pharaoh's army goes down in the sea the way this metal drops through water, and a heavy disc of it is what holds a basket shut.Exo 15:10Zec 5:7Zec 5:8
• It is soft, so it can be poured into letters cut in stone to make writing last, which is what Job wishes for his own words.Job 19:24
• It has a job inside the refining fire itself, helping draw the impurity out of silver, and when it is burned up with nothing to show for it the whole refining has failed.Jer 6:29
• In the trade lists it stays raw stock, bought and sold as bulk metal, and it is never shaped into a tool, a weapon, or a piece of furniture anywhere in the Old Testament.Ezk 27:12

• Both belong to the standard run of metals ancient Israel knew and handled, and a text listing the useful metals from gold on down names them side by side.Num 31:22
• Both can be thrown into the furnace and melted, so Ezekiel piles them into one smelting picture when he describes a people gathered up to be put through the fire.Ezk 22:18Ezk 22:20
• Neither is a treasure metal in these lists. Both rank under the silver and the gold, showing up as the ordinary working metals that fill out the bottom of the list.Ezk 22:20Ezk 22:18

• This is the metal things are actually built out of. Israel's worship furniture is made from it: the altar and its covering, the big washing basin, the pillars that stood at the front of the temple.Exo 27:2Exo 30:181Ki 7:15
• It is hard enough for weapons and armor. Goliath goes into battle wearing a helmet, a coat, and leg guards of it, and carrying a javelin of it.1Sa 17:51Sa 17:61Sa 17:38
• It is the metal of restraint: the shackles a prisoner is bound with when he is dragged off into captivity.Jdg 16:212Ki 25:7Lam 3:7
• Because it is unyielding, it becomes a picture of strength and of things that will not give way: a sky that will not open, city gates that must be smashed, a person made proof against every attack.Deu 28:23Psa 107:16Jer 1:18
• Polished, it shines, so visions reach for it to describe how a heavenly figure glows.Ezk 1:7Dan 10:6
• It counts as wealth. It is dug out of the hills of the promised land, hauled home as war spoil, given as tribute, and stored in the treasury with the silver and the gold.Deu 8:9Jos 6:192Sa 8:10

• Its defining quality is sheer dead weight. Pharaoh's army sinks like it in deep water, and a heavy disc of it seals a basket shut so what is inside cannot get out.Exo 15:10Zec 5:7Zec 5:8
• At the refiner's fire it is on the losing side: the bellows blow hard, this metal is used up, and the refining still comes to nothing.Jer 6:29
• It is a working material poured into cut letters so that words carved in rock will last, valued for durability rather than worth.Job 19:24

• Both are metals in the standard inventory of what people owned and handled, listed together with bronze, iron, and tin among the things that can be put through fire.Num 31:22
• Both were traded goods that merchants shipped and bartered for other wares.Ezk 27:12
• Both are gathered into the same smelting furnace when the prophet pictures a nation being melted down, so both can stand for a people under judgment.Ezk 22:20

• This is the money word. It is the standing measure of price, weighed out to buy land, to settle legal damages, and even to buy a person. Lead never buys anything.Gen 23:15Gen 23:16Gen 37:28Exo 21:32
• It is precious enough to be given to God and shaped into treasured objects: it heads the list of gifts collected for the sanctuary, and a ruler's personal cup is made of it.Exo 25:3Gen 44:2
• In the fire it is the thing being purified, not the thing being burned off, which makes it a standing picture of what comes out proved and clean: tested words, an honest tongue.Pro 17:3Pro 10:20

• The plain, ordinary word for lead as an actual metal, listed among base metals such as silver, iron, and tin in spoils and in trade goods.Num 31:22Ezk 27:12
• Stands for dead weight that sinks: Pharaoh's army went down in the sea like lead in the mighty waters.Exo 15:10
• Belongs to the picture of the refiner's furnace, where lead is burned away in the fire as silver is smelted and tested.Jer 6:29Ezk 22:18Ezk 22:20
• Names concrete everyday objects: a heavy lead lid sealing a basket, and lead poured into letters cut in rock to make an inscription last.Zec 5:7Zec 5:8Job 19:24

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• Appears only in one prophetic vision, where the Lord stands by a wall holding this object and then sets it among his people as the sign that judgment is coming.Amo 7:7Amo 7:8
• Names a testing instrument rather than a raw material: it is held up to see whether a wall stands true, so it pictures God measuring Israel against his own standard. Its exact form is debated, long read as a plumb line and sometimes linked to a metal such as tin.Amo 7:7Amo 7:8