In what way are the people “bronze and iron”?

In Jeremiah 6:28–30, Jeremiah reports back to the Lord as the tester of metals. He has not found the more precious metals. Instead, the people are the dross that is separated from precious metals; they are bronze and iron (see Ezekiel 22:18).¹ Bronze represents the people’s defiance and indifference towards the Lord (Jeremiah 15:12) and iron represents their hardness and the difficulty of making any kind of impact on them.² As the one sent to test the ways (Jeremiah 6:27) of the people Jeremiah finds them all to be stubbornly rebellious. Everywhere he looked he found people who rebelled against the Lord’s covenant. This is a people where everyone is going about with slanders. It is a society in which relationships have broken down.³ Jeremiah’s description of the people compares to Jeremiah 5:1 where the Lord asks Jeremiah to search for even one who does justice and seeks truth.⁴ All of them act corruptly. The Hebrew word used is sahat and it means to corrupt and destroy. The nation is tearing itself apart through corrupt and destructive attitudes and behaviour.⁵