2 Kings 18:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

He removed the high places, &c.— It was a great demonstration of Hezekiah's sincere piety and zeal towards God, that he began so soon to reform the corruption of religion, and did not stay till he had established himself in his throne. He might, however, think that the surest way so to establish himself, was, to establish the true worship of God; though he could not but foresee that he ran a great hazard in attempting the abolition of idolatry, which had been confirmed by so many years prescription. See 2 Chronicles 29 : &c. The reason why Hezekiah destroyed the brazen serpent, we are told, was because the children of Israel burned incense to it: not that we are to suppose, that all along, from the days of Moses, this brazen serpent was made an object of religious worship. This is what neither David, nor Solomon in the beginning of his reign, would have allowed of; nor can we think but that Asa or Jehoshaphat, when they rooted out idolatry, would have made an end of this, had they perceived that the people at that time either paid worship or burned incense to it. The commencement of this superstition, therefore, must be of later date; probably from the time that Ahab's family, by being allied to the crown of Judah by marriage, introduced all kinds of idolatry. One false inducement to the worship of this image, might be a mistake of the words of Moses, Numbers 21:8. Whosoever looketh upon it shall live, whence they might think, by its mediation to obtain a blessing. However, we may imagine, that their burning incense, or any other perfumes before it, was designed only in honour of the true God, by whose direction Moses made it: but then, in process of their superstition, they either worshipped the God of Israel under that image, or, what is worse, substituted a heathen god in his room, and worshipped the brazen serpent as his image; which they might the more easily be induced to do, because the practice of some neighbouring nations was, to worship their gods under the form of a serpent. Upon this account Hezekiah wisely chose, rather to lose this memorial of God's wonderful mercy, than to suffer it any longer to be abused to idolatry; and therefore he brake it in pieces, that is, as the Talmudists express it, "He ground it to powder, and then scattered it in the air, that there might not be the least remains of it." And yet, notwithstanding all the care which he took to destroy it, Sigonius, in his history of Italy, tells us, that in the church of St. Ambrose in Milan, they shew a brazen serpent intire, which they pretend to be the very same with that erected by Moses in the wilderness; though it must be owned, that among their learned men there are some who acknowledge the cheat, and disclaim it. See Le Clerc, and Prid. Connect. A. 726. Parkhurst observes, that the name Nehushtan, נהשׁתן, seems a compound of נחשׁ nichesh, to divine, and תן ten, a serpent, and so denotes the divining spirit; and therefore, he thinks the passage should be rendered: Hezekiah brake the serpent of brass which Moses made, because even to those days the children of Israel were burning incense to it, and called it Nehushtan. So the Targum renders the latter part of the verse, and they were calling it Nehushtan. This implies, that the children of Israel had so far perverted the use of this eminent type of Christ, as to apply to it for magical purposes, as the heathens did to their sacred serpents, or serpentine images; and that therefore Hezekiah brake it. Houbigant translates in the same manner.