COPPER

נחשת . Anciently, copper was employed for all the purposes for which we now use iron. Arms, and tools for husbandry and the mechanic arts, were all of this metal for many ages. Job speaks of bows of copper, Job xx, 24; and when the Philistines had Samson in their power, they bound him with fetters of copper. Our translators indeed say “bra ;” but under that article their mistake is pointed out. In Ezra viii, 27, are mentioned “two ve els of copper, precious as gold.” The Septuagint renders it σκεύη χαλκοῦ ϛίλϐοντος; the Vulgate and Castellio, following the Arabic, “ vasa æris fulgent is ;” and the Syriac, “vases of Corinthian bra .” It is more probable, however, that this bra was not from Corinth, but a metal from Persia or India, which Aristotle describes in these terms: “It is said that there is in India a bra so shining, so pure, so free from tarnish, that its colour differs nothing from that of gold. It is even said that among the ve els of Darius there were some respecting which the sense of smelling might determine whether they were gold or bra .” bra .” Bochart is of opinion that this is the chasmal of Ezekiel i, 27, the χαλκολίϐανον of Rev. i, 15, and the electrum of the ancients. Mr. Harmer quotes from the manuscript notes of Sir John Chard in a reference to a mixed metal in the east, and highly esteemed there; and suggests that this composition might have been as old as the time of Ezra, and be brought from those more remote countries into Persia, where these two basins were given to be conveyed to Jerusalem. Ezekiel, xxvii, 13, speaks of the merchants of Javan, Jubal, and Meshech, as bringing ve els of nehesh (copper) to the markets of Tyre. According to Bochart and Michaëlis, these were people situated toward Mount Caucasus, where copper mines are worked at this day. See Bra .