Nehushtan, the Copper Serpent: Its Origins and Fate

Another of these stories is in Numbers 11, itself an alternative version of a similar story that appears in Exodus 16, in which the people complain about lack of meat. God sends quails whose carcasses surround the camp to a depth of 2 cubits—about 3 feet. God then sends a punishing plague.

For a discussion of the meaning of this term and the identity of these creatures, see my, “What is the Biblical Flying Serpent?,” TheTorah.com (2017). 

The story in 1 Samuel 6 concerning the עפלים/טְחֹרִים, “hemorrhoids/tumors,” is another example of sympathetic magic. The Philistines make golden models of the tumors that afflicted them upon seizing the Ark of the Covenant and send them back with the ark as a way of removing the affliction from their community. The assumption is that removing the models or images of the tumors removes the tumors themselves. This is admittedly a very different technique that than the one employed in Numbers, where looking at the image cures the sufferers, but as they both involve creating an image of the problem as a way of curing the patient, they seem related. See discussion in, Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 21-36, (The Anchor Yale Bible; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 89.

 This may have been how the blood on the doorposts of the Israelite homes during the original Passover was understood: blood, symbolizing the death of the sacrificial lamb, wards off the angel of death. For more on the apotropaic nature of this ritual, see Kristine Garroway’s TABS article, “The Origins of the Biblical Pesach.”

Another etiological tale in the Tanakh is Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis 32:23-33. Because the angel struck Jacob in his כַּף־יֶרֶך, “hip socket,” the people of Israel do not eat גִּיד הַנָּשֶׁה אֲשֶׁר עַל כַּף הַיָּרֵךְ “the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip.” This section of the story is told in part to explain the existing dietary restriction. An interesting and useful analysis of etiological narratives in the Tanakh is found in P.J. van Dyk, “The Function of So-Called Etiological Elements in Narrative”Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 102 (1990), 19-33. Van Dyk understands etiological elements as “rhetorical devices of affirmation” (p. 26). The phenomenon, in this case Nehushtan, “legitimizes the narrative” (p.27). In other words, the existence of the phenomenon calls forth the legitimizing etiological element

The description of the serpent as a שָׂרָף, meaning “to burn [with fire],” could bring to mind a reddish copper serpent figure.

See Nadav Na’aman, “Hezekiah’s Reform in the Light of Historical and ArcheolZeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 107 (1995), 181, who notes that Nehushtan “…occupies exactly the same place in II Reg 18:4 as the graven image (pesel) in the passages in Deuteronomy…” Cf. Marvin A. Sweeny, I & II Kings: A Commentary(Louisville, London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 403.

In theory, Hezekiah’s reform can be seen as religious zealotry but it can also be understood as political. Hezekiah’s reign was a period of ultra-nationalism in the Kingdom of Judah, as he prepared the nation to rebel against their Assyrian lords. The Kingdom of Israel to the north had been utterly destroyed and dismantled by Assyria, yet the Assyrian usurper, King Sargon II, appears to have become bogged down with military confrontations on several fronts. At the same time, a resurgent Egypt was happy to foment rebellion among Assyrian vassals in Palestine. These fluid conditions encouraged Hezekiah to reassert Judean independence. The abolition of the local shrines outside of Jerusalem could be seen as an effort to consolidate religious, military and political power in the royal capital. Indeed, 2 Kings 18 mentions Hezekiah’s revolt against the Assyrians in 701 B.C.E. in conjunction with his religious reform. Perhaps this surge of Judean nationalism included a desire to eliminate any practices, seen as vestiges of non-Judahite religious traditions. For a review of the historical circumstances surrounding the reign of Hezekiah, see John Bright, A History of Israel, 4^th Edition (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 278-88; J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, 2^nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 400-420; Mario Liverani, Israel’s History and the History of Israel (trans. Chiara Perry and Philip R. Davies; London: Equinox, 2005), 143-164.

Judith M. Hadley, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 81. Cf. Saul M. Olyan,Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel, SBL Monograph Series 34 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988).

Scholars have offered many suggestions for its origins. For a brief summary, see Heinz-Josef Fabry in G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren and Heinz-Josef Fabry (eds.),Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), s.v. נְחשֶׁת, Vol. IX, 379.

Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 269-70. Keel attributes this to Egyptian influence

Karen Randolph Joines, Serpent Symbolism in the Old Testament: A Linguistic, Archeological, and Literary Study (Haddonfield, NJ: Haddonfield House, 1974), 64-67.

Albert Leonard, Jr., “Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine: The Late Bronze Age,” The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 52, No. 1 (March 1989), 22.

The Torah provides evidence for pre-Israelite cultic activity in Jerusalem in Abrahams’ interaction with King Melchizedek of Salem (i.e., Jerusalem), who is called כֹּהֵן לְאֵל עֶליוֹן “priest of God Most High.” The persistence of this figure in the Jerusalem cult during the period of the monarchy is suggested by a reference in Psalm 110:4, where YHWH swears to the Davidic king, אַתָּה־כֹהֵן לְעוֹלָם עַל־דִבְרָתִי מַלכִּי־צֶדֶק, which JPS translates, “You are a priest forever, a rightful king by my decree.” A note in the JPS text suggests the possibility of a different translation: “You are a priest forever after the manner of Melkhizedek."

See Joines, Serpent Symbolism, 47; Othmar Keel, Jahwe-Visionen und Siegelkunst, Stuttgart Bibelstudien 84/85 (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1977), 83-84, 91; Keel and Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, 251, 273 and passim. 

2 Kings 18-19.

See Robert Deutsch, “Lasting Impressions,” Biblical Archeology Review 28.4 (2002) 24-36, who identifies six seal impressions bearing the name of Hezekiah and the scarab motif. See also, Robin Ngo, “King Hezekiah in the Bible: Royal Seal of Hezekiah Comes to Light,”Bible History Daily (Dec. 3, 2015).

A number of royal seals and seal impressions from the reign of Hezekiah bearing Egyptian motifs have been discovered. For a summary of the evidence, see Kristin A. Swanson, “A Reassessment of Hezekiah’s Reform in Light of Jar Handles and Iconographic Evidence,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 64:3 (July 2002): 464. See also Robert Deutsch, “Six Hebrew Fiscal Bullae from the Time of Hezekiah,” in New Inscriptions and Seals Relating to the Biblical World, Num. 9 (eds., Meir Lubetski and Edith Lubetski; Archeology and Biblical Studies; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 63-65. Deutsch identifies two seal impressions dated to the reign of Hezekiah, each bearing the image of a four-winged uraeus.

Keel and Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, 273.

This would also allow enough time for the story in Numbers explaining the origin of the serpent to develop, something that would not be the case if Hezekiah both introduced the image and destroyed it in a matter of decades. Etiological tales are generally told with regard to well-known realities, not made up on the spot. Van Dyke, “The Function of So-Called Etiological Elements,” 23

Na’aman, “Hezekiah’s Reform,” 181.

 Ibid, 194.

Swanson, “A Reassessment of Hezekiah’s Reform,” 466.

William W. Hallow et al. (eds.), The Context of Scripture: Canonical Compositions, Monumental Inscriptions, and Archival Documents from the Biblical World (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2003), Vol. II, 303.

R.D. Barnett, “Layard’s Nimrud Bronzes and Their Inscriptions,” Eretz Israel, 1967, 1*-6*.

J.J.M. Roberts “The Rod that Smote Philistia” in David S. Vanderhooft and Abraham Winitzer (eds,), Literature as Politics, Politics as Literature, Essays on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Peter Machinist (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 392-94.

Roberts assigns the taking of this booty to Tiglath Pileser III (745-727 B.C.E) as part of the tribute paid by King Ahaz of Judah in return for the Assyrian king’s assistance in the so-called “Syro-Ephraimite War” of 735-732 B.C.E. as described in II Kings 16. In a note to Barnett’s article, “Nimrud Bronzes,” 6, Yigal Yadin attributes the taking of this booty to either Tiglath Pileser III or Sennacherib.