I enjoy the History Channel program ‘Forged in Fire’. Someday I may try my hand at knife making or Black Smithery in general. I have never done much in that line. My sons have done more and it pleases me that I was able to pass along my Great Grandfather’s anvil to them for use in their projects. That said, most of my sermons involve some kind of side study – either a related Bible study, a historical study, or a technical study. (For one sermon not too long ago I studied the history of toilets and septic systems in the ancient world.) I seldom use everything from such a study in the actual sermon. Sometimes I use none of it explicitly. It may be enough for my background knowledge to be expanded. Most times I will include at least a few details of such a study. Only very occasionally does the study become the sermon. Anyway, for a recent sermon the side study was Biblical, historical and technical! I used some of it in the sermon. The main point was to better understand the text in question. I will share a bit of this now in the hope that the issue itself may interest some and that some may see how to expand their own Bible studies.
In II Kings 6, the prophet Elisha causes an iron ax head to float. A member of his community – the Sons of the Prophets – had borrowed the axe head. In the process of the job being done, the iron ax head flew off the handle and disappeared beneath the waters of the Jordan provoking the particular son of the prophets to lament – ‘Alas, it was borrowed.’ Like most things in the ministry of Elisha, the incident generally strikes us as strange. I believe there is a much larger spiritual lesson contained in the incident but in this blog I will only be speaking to a technical question. So the ax head fell in the river. Why was that such a big deal? The incident doesn’t really make much sense – or convey the larger spiritual lesson – until we understand why the lost ax head should be such a big deal. Most of you probably already know that the eras between ‘pre-history’ and ‘modern history’ are divided into three general periods: the stone age, the bronze age and the iron age. These divisions were established because the progress from stone tools to bronze tools to iron tools had major impacts on civilization. It should also be understood that the divisions are not chronologically neat. The changes did not happen everywhere at once – not even near at once. Still, it can be technically said that the chunk of history covered by the Old Testament falls partly into all three – stone, bronze and iron ages. There are seven ‘metals of antiquity’: gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, iron and mercury. The only one of these metals of antiquity not mentioned specifically in the Bible is mercury. In the progress of antiquity, records outside the Bible agree that two peoples known to the Bible – the Hittites and the Philistines – were pioneers in the transition from the bronze age to the iron age. The switch required advances in smelting and forging technology. The non-ferrous metals known to antiquity all have relatively low melting temperatures. I say relatively because (excluding mercury) they all melt somewhere between 800 and 1100 degrees F. But iron melts above 1500 degrees F. Picking up those extra degrees was a big hurdle. The earliest iron working was done on metal harvested from meteorites – the smelting having been accomplished by the heat provided in the passage through the atmosphere. But the Hittites and Philistines discovered how to smelt raw ore gathered from the earth rather than fallen from the heavens. The main necessity was charcoal. (It is interesting here that the earlier Hebrew word for ‘Smith’ was ‘nappar’ – the user of bellows - but the later Hebrew word for ‘Smith’ was pehami – the user of charcoal) Not only did charcoal make a hotter fire, at temperatures well below the normal melting temperature of iron, the heat from charcoal alloyed carbon into the iron. You don’t want much carbon or the iron becomes so hard as to be brittle. But a little carbon hardens the iron AND lowers the temperature at which it can be forged. Iron could now be smelted and forged and temperatures only a little higher than the non-ferrous metals. The proprietors of this new technology suddenly enjoyed tremendous economic and military advantage. Bronze weapons don’t fare well in contact with steel weapons and the new iron/steel tools took and held better edges and lasted longer. The first iron agers carefully guarded their secrets to maintain these advantages. But, of course, secrets get out. It just took a while. The ’early iron age’ – that time in which the secret technology was slowly spreading – is reckoned to have run from 1200 – 600 AD. During this time the needed techniques were learned by the Egyptians and spread as far away as China. The Americas were late comers to the iron age. When the Europeans began arriving 2000 years later, the Native Americans were still stone or bronze age peoples. If you study the early chapters of I Kings you will discover that the Philistines stringently and violently kept their secrets of iron-mongery from the Israelites in the generation of Saul. This was part of the way they maintained their control of Israel. Elisha (early II Kings comes a little later – about 800 BC – closer to the end of the early iron age than the beginning. The point is that there would be a few iron axe heads around for Elisha and his Israelite contemporaries – and these tools would be vastly superior to stone or bronze versions - but they would be PRICEY! As nearly as I can find out, a member of Elisha’s prophecy school would have to spend an entire month’s wages to buy such a thing. And in this instance the son of the prophets in question did not buy the iron ax head. He borrowed it. He borrowed a thing worth about 9% of all the money he could expect to earn in a year and lost it in the river. ALAS, IT WAS BORROWED! I am on the hook! This being the heart of tax season, I can tell you it would be like me being on the hook for about $6000. Alas! Maybe even alak! Apart from making this incident from II Kings more comprehensible (and helping prepare us for the larger spiritual lesson) the study lends credence to the historicity of the Bible as a whole. You might try moving forward a few more centuries and considering how texts like Isaiah 44:12 fit into the historical progression. Of course, we might also back up to Genesis 4:22 and read that Tubal-Cain was a worker of various metals including iron. Wait – what! It’s too early! I will tell you that I think much knowledge was lost in the flood of Noah. Anyway – if this inspires you to expand your Bible Study techniques, have fun!
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AuthorPastor and Author Terry Bailey, Senior Pastor of Indian Run Christian Church Archives
December 2022
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