SMITH (c;-0-0, a workman in stone, wood, or metal, like the Latin faber, but sometimes more accurately defined by what follows, as t-im chrr, a. workman in iron, a smith ; Sept. TEKTWY, TEKTWV at377' pou, xaX1c€6 s, Texvirns ; Vulg. faber and faber ferrarius (i Sam. xiii. 19 ; ls. xliv. I, 2 ; 11V. 16 ; 2 Kings xxiv. 14 ; Jer. xxiv. ; xxix. 2). In 2 Chron. xxiv. 12, workers in iron and brass' are mentioned. The first smith mentioned in Scrip ture is Tubal-Cain, whom some writers, arguing from the similarity of the names, identify with Vul can (Gerh. Vossius, De Orig. Idolol. 16), He is said to have been an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron (Gen. iv. 22), or perhaps more properly, a whetter or sharpener of every instru ment of copper or iron. So Montanus, acuen tem ornne artificium mris et ferri ;' Sept. o-sbvpoicbros xaXtcds xaXica Kai aiShpou ; Vulg. fuit malleator et faber in cuncta opera mris et ferri.' Josephus says that he first of all invented the art of making brass (Antiq. i. 2. 2). As the art of the smith is one of the first essentials to civilisation, the mention of its founder was worthy of a place among the other fathers of inventions. So requisite was the trade of a smith in ancient warfare that conquerors re moved these artizans from a vanquished nation, in order the more effectually to disable it. Thus the Philistines deprived the Hebrews of their smiths (r Sam. xiii. ; comp. Judg. v. 8). So Nebuchad nezzar, king of Babylon, treated them in later times (2 Kings xxiv. 14 ; Jer. xxiv. ; xxix. 2). With these instances the commentators compare the stipu lation of Porsenna with the Roman people, after the expulsion of their kings : Ne ferro, nisi in agricultura, uterentur' (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxi. Et).
Cyrus treated the Lydians in the same manner (Herod. 155, 156). -9 on, smith, occurs in 2 Kings xxiv. 14, 16 ; Sept. avyactovra • Jer. xxiv. ; xxix. 2 ; Vulg. clusor,' or inclusor.' Buxtorf gives claustrarius, faber ferrarius.' The root 131:), to close, indicates artizans with busy hammers closing rivets up ;' which suits the context better than other renderings, as setters of precious stones, seal-engravers, etc. In the N. T. we meet with Demetrius, the silversmith,' at Ephesus, dmpo K6ros, a worker in silver,',Vulg. argentarius ; but the commentators are not agreed whether he was a manufacturer of small silver models of the Temple of Diana, vao6r aroporn, or at least of the chapel which contained the famous statue of the goddess, to be sold to foreigners, or used in private devotion, or taken with them by travellers as a safeguard ; or whether he made large coins representing the temple and image. Beza, Scaliger, and others, understand a coiner or mintmaster (see Kuinoel in ioc.) That the word may signify a silverftunder, is clear from the Sept. rendering of Jer. vi. 29. From Plutarch (opp. t. ix. pp. 3or and 473, ed. Reisk) and Hesychius it appears that the word signifies any worker in silver or money. A copper smith named Alexander is mentioned as an op ponent of St. Paul (2 Tim. iv. 14). [Com.; IRON ;