He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
He removed the high places ..) - i:e., pillars or altars of stone (Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 12:3; Deuteronomy 16:22) erected on the summit of hills or any kind of eminence for unlawful and frequently idolatrous purposes (2 Kings 12:3; 2 Kings 14:4; Ezekiel 6:6). There were high places at Beth-el (2 Kings 23:15), Beersheba (Amos 8:14), Moriah (2 Samuel 24:8), Gilead (Hosea 12:11; Hosea 5:1; Hosea 6:8), Ramah, Olivet (2 Kings 23:13), Carmel (1 Kings 18:30), Gibeon (1 Kings 3:4). Although Hezekiah seems to have sent his royal proclamations through the northern kingdom of Israel, now desolate, and retaining but a small remnant of people (see 2 Chronicles 30:1-27), it was only "the high places" in Judah his royal authority could be effective in removing. The great extent to which idolatry on high places was carried in the reign of his father Ahaz appears from 2 Kings 16:4: cf. Jeremiah 32:35. The methods adopted by this good king for extirpating idolatry, and accomplishing a thorough reformation in religion, are fully detailed, 2 Chronicles 29:3; 2 Chronicles 31:19. But they are here indicated very briefly, and in a sort of passing allusion.
Cut down the groves, х haa-'Asheeraah (H842) (singular)] - the Asherah, probably a wooden statue of Ashtereth, or Astarte. When the image is spoken of as to be destroyed or burned, the word used is always "cut down."
Brake in pieces the brasen serpent. The preservation of this remarkable relic of antiquity (Numbers 21:5-9) might, like the pot of manna and Aaron's rod, have remained an interesting and instructive monument of the divine goodness and mercy to the Israelites in the wilderness; and it must have required the exercise of no small courage and resolution to destroy it. But in the progress of degeneracy it had become an object of idolatrous worship; and as the interests of true religion rendered its demolition necessary, Hezekiah, by taking this bold step, consulted both the glory of God and the good of his country.
Unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it. It is not to be supposed that this superstitious reverence had been paid to it ever since the time of Moses-for such idolatry would not have been tolerated either by David or by Solomon in the early part of his reign; by Ass or Jehoshaphat, had they been aware of such a folly. But the probability is, that the introduction of this superstition does not date earlier than the time when the family of Ahab, by their alliance with the throne of Judah, exercised a pernicious influence in paving the way for all kinds of idolatry. Hence, it is said "the children of Israel did burn incense to it" - i:e., the people of the northern as well as the southern kingdom. It is possible, however, as some think, that its origin may have arisen out of a misapprehension of Moses' language (Numbers 21:8).
Serpent-worship, how revolting soever it may appear, was an extensively diffused form of idolatry, and it would obtain an easier reception in Israel, that many of the neighbouring nations, such as the Egyptians and Phoenicians, adored idol gods in the form of serpents as the emblems of health and immortality. Among the numerous hypotheses advanced to account for the origin of this singular reverence, not the least likely is, that it arose from vague and distorted rumours of the miraculous healing of the Israelites in the wilderness; and the image of a serpent became the deified symbol of something good and beneficent.
Thus cerastes (horned snake) was sacred to Ammon, an Egyptian deity; and the venomous naia-haj was regarded as an emblem of Cneph, their good deity. The Phoenicians, too, considered the serpent a good demon; and so did the Romans, among whom the sign of AEsculapius was a serpent. Besides, the tutelary protectors of countries and cities were worshipped under the figure of serpents; and the sculptured representation or picture of two serpents at the entrance was a sign that a place was consecrated (Tit. Livii,`Epitome,' lib. 11:; Ovid, 'Metamorph.,' lib. 15:; 'Fab.,' 50:; Persius, 'Satir.,' 1:, 5: 113; Eusebius, 'De Praep. Evang.,' lib. 1:, cap. 10:; Wilkinson's 'Ancient Egyptians,' 2:, 134; 4:, 395; 5:, 64,238; Marsham. 'Canonical Chronology,' pp. 148, 149; Witsius, 'AEgyptiaca,' 1:, 852).
The prevalence of ophiolatry in Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, and Assyria, could scarcely fail to arrest the attention and impress the minds of the Hebrew people, until in times of ignorance and idolatry, they adopted the same superstition; and although the brasen serpent in the wilderness had no symbolic import, but was merely an external sign, selected probably for the general ground of removing all ideas of the natural accomplishment of the cure, yet the tradition concerning the animal the sight of which had restored the wounded Hebrews, and the reverence felt for it by the neighbouring nations, naturally produced similar sentiments in the minds of the Israelites, until admiration for a venerable relic of antiquity, combined with the contagion of contemporary usages, had, in the degenerate times of the monarchy, gradually led to the worship of the brasen serpent.
And he called it Nehushtan - i:e., a mere piece of brass х nªchoshet (H5178), brass, copper; Septuagint, Neesthan].