Read

Nehushtan

2 Kings 18:4

In the Book of Numbers is the record of God saving the people of Israel by the brass serpent, which was elevated on a pole. Whenever the people would look at the bronze snake that the Lord had commanded Moses to make, they would be healed (Numbers 29). John 3 picks up this message as an illustration of salvation.

In Hezekiah's revival in 2 Kings 18 is an interesting discovery: the people of Israel took down that bronze snake and they made an idol out of it. The very thing that God had used as an instrument of their physical salvation, they took and the Scripture says, in 2 Kings 18:4 that "Israel burned incense unto that bronze serpent and they called it Nehushtan."

The people had allowed the replica of God's physical salvation to become a Nehushtan, a "bronze thing" of worship. And when the revival came, Hezekiah did away with it. He took all their worship practices that were not pure and he destroyed them.

Back to Second Kings