Nehushtan facts for kids

Moses lifts up the brass snake, curing the Israelites of snakebites. Hezekiah called the snake '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 to punish them for speaking against Him and Moses (Numbers 21:4-9).

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".

Images for kids

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  The Brazen Serpent (watercolor circa 1896–1902 by James Tissot)

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  The Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan has a Roman column and, on top of it, a bronze serpent donated by emperor Basil II in 1007.

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  In 1508 Michelangelo's image of the Israelites deliverance from the plague of serpents by the creation of the bronze serpent, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

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  A modern monument of the bronze serpent (which Moses erected in the Negev desert) on Mount Nebo, in front of the church of Saint Moses (2018).