Nehushtan
The Nehushtan (Hebrew: נחשתן Nəḥuštān [nə.ħuʃ.taːn]) is the bronze serpent on a pole first described in the Book of Numbers. God told Moses to make it. This was to cure the Israelites. Those who saw the nehushtan would be cured from the deathly bites of the "fiery serpents". God initially sent the fiery serpents to punish them for speaking against Him and Moses (Numbers 21:4–9).
Moses lifts up the brass snake, curing the Israelites of snakebites. Hezekiah called the snake 'Nehushtan'.
In the biblical Books of Kings (2 Kings 18:4; written c. 550 BCE), King Hezekiah leads an iconoclastic reform. This requires the destruction of "the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan". The term means "a brazen thing, a mere piece of brass".[1]
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