TIN

A faintly bluish white metal that is very malleable. Of the six products of the ancient metallurgist’s furnace, tin had the lowest melting point of all, only 232° C. (449° F.). (Eze 22:18, 20) The original Hebrew word bedhilʹ means “that which is separated or divided,” that is, from precious metals by smelting; it is also translated “waste products.”​—Isa 1:25.

There were no tin mines in Palestine. The first reference to tin, soon after the Exodus, includes it among the valuable spoils of war taken from the Midianites. (Nu 31:2, 22) The Tyrians obtained tin from Tarshish. (Eze 27:12) Much of the heavy dark oxide of tin called cassiterite came from river sands in Spain and England. Tin, it appears, was used to make plummets, for at Zechariah 4:10 (which speaks of “the plummet”) the Masoretic text reads, “the stone [or, weight], the tin.” In Amos 7:7, 8 the Hebrew word translated “plummet” may mean tin or lead. Tin’s greatest usefulness, however, was as a hardening agent; copper alloyed with 2 to 18 percent tin has been found in ancient specimens of bronze.