King Hezekiah destroys a bronze serpent and an Asherah tree on the Temple grounds, remembering how he had played in their shade as a child.

Context

• Reference: 2 Kings 18:4

• Moses created the metal serpent so that people who were bitten by snakes in the desert might be healed by looking at it.

• The serpent was brought from the desert to the promised land and, along with a tree or pole sacred to the goddess Asherah, placed in the courtyard of the Temple when it was built.

Aftermath

• Hezekiah reigned for twenty-nine years.

Notes

This event seems to involve several layers of storytelling. Some scholars doubt that Hezekiah destroyed the serpent. While some of his actions promoted the worship of only one god, he appears to have taken other steps to allow the worship of others to continue. Since Hezekiah was a powerful king and viewed favorably in later years, the writers and editors of the text may have created this story to connect the removal of the cults of Asherah and of snake worship with him.

The story of Moses's creation of the snake seems doubtful. I wonder, if it were true, where it would have been kept in the centuries between the desert journeys and the creation of the Temple, and why both items would have been put there when the Temple was supposed to be strictly for the one god.

It makes more sense (assuming that the reader isn't assuming the literal truthfulness of the Biblical text) to conjecture that, just as the Biblical writers may have created the story of the destruction of the serpent, they would have reached further back and created the origin story involving Moses.

Viewing the story as true, however, (as Elisheva would have done) brings us back to the emotions of that one man standing with his axe at the base of the serpent and of the tree. If he would have grown up all his life with these monuments in view, the need to destroy them must have been especially painful. It would have taken an exceptional sense of urgency (spurred, perhaps, by the echo of the voice of Moses within him) for him to proceed.

(I admit that there is an error that occurs several times in this story. The serpent's name, as given in the Biblical text, is Nechushtan, not Nechoshet. The word Nechoshet occurs earlier in the verse, meaning "brass" or possibly "copper." The words for "brass (or copper) serpent" in the Hebrew text are נחש הנחושת, "nachash hanechoshet." It looks like I had copied it down incorrectly when I started work on this story, and the bug got past everyone who read it, I only noticed it now in writing these notes.)