FORGE, FORGER. The two trs. of this Heb. word in the KJV (Job 13:4 and Ps 119:69) are in a context calling for a fig. use of this word. Lexicographers have come to define this word, טָפַל, H3260, as “to smear” or “plaster over” and the contemporary VSS have tr. the word accordingly.

The forger of metals and his furnace, however, is to be found several times in the pages of Scripture and in Ap. Lit. Jeremiah (6:27-30) compares the Judeans to “bronze and iron” having impurities and needing the refining process of God. Both Ezekiel (22:18, 20) and Isaiah (48:10) speak of God’s fury melting Israel in the crucible. Likewise in the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus a number of references are noticed concerning the forging of metals (31:26; 38:28).