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Bible Encyclopedias
Smith
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or The word so rendered literally signifies a workman in stone, wood, or metal, but is sometimes more accurately defined by what follows. The first smith mentioned in Scripture is Tubal-Cain, whom some writers, arguing from the similarity of the names, identify with Vulcan. He is said to have been 'an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron' (), or perhaps more properly, a whetter or sharpener of every instrument of copper or iron. As the art of the smith is one of the first essentials to civilization, 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 removed these artisans from a vanquished nation, in order the more effectually to disable it. Thus the Philistines deprived the Hebrews of their smiths (; comp. ). So Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, treated them in later times (;; ). In the New Testament we meet with Demetrius, 'the silversmith,' at Ephesus; but the commentators are not agreed whether he was a manufacturer of small silver models of the Temple of Diana, 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 travelers as a safeguard; or whether he made large coins representing the temple and image. A coppersmith named Alexander is mentioned as an opponent of St. Paul () [COAL; IRON; METALS].
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Smith'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/s/smith.html.
