NEHUSHTAN
‘He … brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.’
King Hezekiah was bent on the work of national reformation. He saw that incense was being burnt to this brazen serpent; that was enough for him. Whatever it may have been in the past, it was clearly a curse to the people now. It had better, therefore, be destroyed at once. Observe then:—
I. A blind veneration for the past is always an obstacle in the path of progress.—An intelligent regard for the past is, of course, a help and not a hindrance in the direction of all true advance. But there are always multitudes who cling with unintelligent grasp to institutions and customs, simply because these have come down to them from their fathers.… If there be a tendency to worship the brazen serpent instead of the living God, then, whilst it may be lawful enough to preserve the image as a memorial, yet, inasmuch as, after all, the thing is only a piece of brass, it may be, on the whole, the truest wisdom to grind it to powder.
II. Even that which has been ordained by God Himself for a blessing may be so misused as to become a curse.
(1) Art and science, for example, are intended by God to be handmaids of true progress; but the worship of science tends only to materialism, and the worship of beauty tends ultimately to sensuality.
(2) The weekly day of rest; that, too, is a gift of God, and fitted to be a source of blessing. But it may be so misused as to become a hindrance. May be spent in idleness or debauchery. May be misused by being idolised.
(3) The Bible, again, what a blessed boon it is, containing, as it does, a revelation of the character and will of God! But the Bible will not bring us all the good which it is fitted to impart if we begin to worship itself instead of Him Whom it reveals.
(4) Our sanctuaries, too, with their ordinances of common worship, are of Divine appointment. But the ordinances of the sanctuary can do us good only as in and through them we draw near in spirit to Him Who ‘dwelleth not in temples made with hands.’
III. Every symbol loses its significance and value in proportion as it is converted into an idol.—The significance of a symbol lies in its pointing to something more precious than itself, which it expresses or enshrines.
Illustration
‘The serpent of brass, reared up by Moses, when the tribes were on their weary march from Mount Hor to Oboth, was not in itself miraculous, though it wrought cures of that nature upon the wounded Israelites. To the bitten and unbitten alike, as a teaching object, its lesson was, that faith should be both simple and prompt; whoever the sufferer might be, no preparation was required; by a straightforward look at the serpent he lived. Hearers ought to be cautioned against the common error of calling the brazen serpent a “type of Christ.” As, from the Fall to the closing apocalyptic visions, the serpent symbolises the great spiritual foe of man, such a representation appears to be objectionable, and unsanctioned by Scripture. All that is implied in St. John 3:14 is that Moses’ serpent, and Christ upon the cross, resembled each other in this particular, that they were both elevated to draw and fix the attention of men. Could Moses have anticipated the mischief that was afterwards to arise from his brazen serpent, he would doubtless have destroyed it when its special work was done. Kept reverently at first as a mere relic, at length it became the object of blind superstition, until Hezekiah, some seven hundred years later, broke it up, giving it the contemptuous name of Nehushtan, a “bit of brass.” ’