Week 9 2 Kings 18
Nehushtan was a bronze snake. Originally he’d been cast by Moses back in the wilderness during one of the times that Israel had been complaining about their terrible life. The result was that the Lord sent venomous snakes among them. Deadly snakes. When people started dying they reversed course and pleaded with Moses to come-to-the-rescue. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole…When anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. It was another wilderness miracle: look at Nehushtan and survive.
Anyway after the snake episode Nehushtan disappeared for a long time. Where he landed is anybody’s guess. Maybe archived as a historical relic. Maybe locked away in a storage room. Whatever happened Nehushtan disappeared from the record for six or seven centuries. But he hadn’t been melted down.
And at some point Nehushtan reappeared. Polished-up & refurbished & repurposed as a kind of quasi-idol. He showed up during king Hezekiah’s reign. Unfortunately for Nehushtan it turned out to be his swan-song because Hezekiah was a reforming king and one of the first things he did was to break into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)
So credit Hezekiah for his efforts. But the Nehushtan revival was one more example of Israel’s voracious appetite for alternate gods. And their creativity in finding them.
Note: quotes from Numbers 21:6 9 & 2 Kings 18:4 (NIV)