Nehushtan

The brazen serpent (Hebrew נחשתן Nehuschtan ) was an image of a snake from processed copper ore. It was erected by Moses on the instructions of God for healing after the bite of fiery serpents. Depending on the translation is also spoken by a snake made ​​of copper or bronze.

Biblical narrative

According to a narration of the Tanakh or Old Testament God sent snakes among the Israelites as punishment for the impatience, ingratitude and grumbling after the exodus from Egypt during the trek through the desert. Who was bitten by a fiery serpent and looked up at the erected at a bar brazen serpent was healed and was allowed to live.

" 6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people; they bit the people, that many people of Israel died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Please, that he take away the serpents from us the Lord. And Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole on. Anyone who is bitten looks at it, shall live. 9 So Moses made ​​a bronze serpent and set it on high. And if someone biting a snake, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. "

In the second book of Kings is described how King Hezekiah destroyed the character because she was abused to idolatry ( 2 Kings 18.4 EU).

The healing of those who were looking at the snake, is counted among the saving acts of God ( cf. Deut 8.15 EU). The wisdom literature says that God had given his people so that a " mark -saving " (Wis 16.5 to 11 EU).

Reference in the New Testament

The story of the serpent will be taken up in the New Testament, when Jesus speaks to Nicodemus about the history and used as an analogy:

" And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes ( to him ), and in him may have eternal life. "

The cure, which found the Israelites by the look on the snake, is pictorially for salvation, Jesus therefore as "raised" by his death on the cross, the hanging on a wood, has obtained. The believer receives healing when he looks at the Crucified as the Israelites on the snake. In the art is for this reason again the representation of a cross with a snake.

Background

Snake Gods, snake cults and snake idols are from the different crops especially known in afrasischen space, but also occur with the Germans in the form of the Midgard Serpent. It also provides a central mythical figure in Genesis dar. At the beginning of the 20th century brought the snake idol with Moses father in law Jethro midianitischem in conjunction, the Bible repeatedly mentioned. Was discovered in 1969, the Israeli researchers Beno Rothenberg in the inner sanctum of the Midianite tent shrine of Timna a 12 cm long, partially gilt copper snake. Through this Fund, the biblical account of the brazen serpent gets its historical background.

The poisonous snake bite and its consequences symbolizes the Christian view, the destructive and sickening sin, of which humanity was later freed by Christ, who wore these sins in His body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24 EU). The healing and deliverance from sin is to take place through faith in Christ (John 3,14,15 EU).