Brazen Serpent. In the biblical Books of Kings, the Nehushtan is the derogatory name given to the bronze serpent on a pole first described in the Book of Numbers which God told Moses to erect so that the Israelites who saw it would be protected from dying from the bites of the fiery serpents, which God had sent to punish them for speaking against him and Moses.
In Kings, King Hezekiah institutes an iconoclastic reform that 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.
The name is transliterated as Nohestan in the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition, as N'chushtan in the Complete Jewish Bible and as Nechushtan in the Orthodox Jewish Bible. The English Standard Version of the Bible and the majority of contemporary English translations refer to the serpent as made of 'bronze', whereas the King James Version and a number of other versions state 'brass'.
The Douai-Rheims 1899 edition has 'brazen'. Eugene H. Peterson, who created a loose paraphrase of the Bible as The Message, opted for 'a snake of fiery copper'.
The reference in 2 Kings 18:4 is translated as 'brasen' in the King James Version. Snake cults had been well established in Canaan in the Bronze Age: archaeologists have uncovered serpent cult objects in Bronze Age strata
In Kings, King Hezekiah institutes an iconoclastic reform that 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.
The name is transliterated as Nohestan in the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition, as N'chushtan in the Complete Jewish Bible and as Nechushtan in the Orthodox Jewish Bible. The English Standard Version of the Bible and the majority of contemporary English translations refer to the serpent as made of 'bronze', whereas the King James Version and a number of other versions state 'brass'.
The Douai-Rheims 1899 edition has 'brazen'. Eugene H. Peterson, who created a loose paraphrase of the Bible as The Message, opted for 'a snake of fiery copper'.
The reference in 2 Kings 18:4 is translated as 'brasen' in the King James Version. Snake cults had been well established in Canaan in the Bronze Age: archaeologists have uncovered serpent cult objects in Bronze Age strata
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