Nehushtan was the name eventually given to the bronze serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness (Numbers 21:5-9) when the murmuring Israelites were bitten by a plague of poisonous snakes. The power to heal was not in the bronze serpent, but in the LORD. Looking upon the serpent was a “condition”; “if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived” (v.9).
But unfortunately by the time of the Divided Kingdom years, that serpent had become an object of idolatry. In the context of good King Hezekiah’s reforms in Judah we read, “He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan)” (2 Kings 18:4).
There is a visual at Mt. Nebo that is helpful. (Mt. Nebo was the mountain where Moses was permitted to see the promised land of Canaan, from the eastern side of the Jordan River, and then he died (Deut. 34:1-8).
Jesus made use of the this Old Testament event of Moses’s day to draw a parallel with His gracious work of salvation, in one of the most well known texts of Scripture: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:14-16). You will notice the info sign in our photo references this text.
That is my former professor and friend Ferrell Jenkins at right in photo.
Mt. Nebo is in today’s Jordan.
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