The Good and Evil Serpent (86 page)

Ninth: What is meant by: “The Israelites were offering sacrifices to it,” and is that the only, and accurate, translation of the Hebrew? Is it clear that Israelites had been sacrificing
to
this serpent? The Deuteronomist states that “until those very days the Israelites were offering sacrifices to it
.” The Deuteronomistic Historian certainly would approve of the interpretation that stresses that Israelites were worshipping the serpent, and not only worshipping Yahweh through it. Does the Hebrew mean that the Israelites were sacrificing to the image of a serpent, Nechushtan? One cannot be certain; the
lamad
may be a note of the accusative or a note of the dative. That is, the
lamad
can also denote that the Israelites were sacrificing through the image to God Yahweh.

The Hebrew words clearly indicate that the Israelites, and not others, were actively offering sacrifices to the image of a serpent in the Temple. That means that the Israelites were either offering sacrifices to God, Yah-weh, through this symbol, or more likely that some Israelites were directly worshipping Nechushtan, a serpent. A serpent cult was well established throughout ancient Palestine, especially at Beth Shan and Hazor, and active during the time from Solomon to Hezekiah. Many Israelites did not think that the second commandment was binding or interpreted it differently than the Deuteronomistic Historian did.

Tenth: Why does the author add that the serpent “was called Nechushtan”
? Despite the usual hesitation by some scholars, I am convinced that the author of 2 Kings 18:1–4 carefully crafted his thought and produced paronomasia:
nechash hannechosheth … nechushtan.
³²²
Montgomery and Milgrom
³²³
rightly draw attention to the “play on the two words”:
nechash hannechosheth.
³²⁴
The Hebrew phrase,
nechash han-nechosheth
, means “the copper (or bronze) serpent.” The selection of words seems deliberate; the Deuteronomistic Historian chose his thought to bring out alliteration and paronomasia. He also succeeded in putting the serpent, nachash, in central focus. In English, the closest I can come to such a careful choice of words is “the copper cobra.” Perhaps calling the serpent
nechushtan
accentuated this paronomasia. The sound
nechash han-nechosheth
may also be onomatopoeic; that is, it could recall the hissing sound made by a serpent. I doubt that Deuteronomy sought to appeal to the Moses tradition, since in Numbers the word for serpent is
seraph
(
in 21:6 and
in 21:8).

Eleventh: How does the study of serpent iconography and symbology help us comprehend this passage? Perceiving how widespread the worship and veneration of the serpent were in ancient Palestine and neighboring countries stimulates the imagination: perhaps ophidian symbolism was present and even a serpent worshipped in the Temple before the purifying reform of Hezekiah. Jerusalem was not cut off from the rest of the world.

I have found many serpents and serpent images in the antiquity shops of the Old City of Jerusalem, dating from the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age (and then beginning again in the Greek Period). Archaeologists have recovered serpent images in and near Jerusalem. Hence, merchants brought many serpent objects from Egypt, Babylonia, and Canaan into Jerusalem. They could have been personal belongings, accorded different levels of respect or attention, and they could have been brought to sell to those living in this metropolis.

It is unwise to think that before Hezekiah all Israelites or devotees of Yahweh had a fondness for Yahweh alone. Henotheism would have allowed for an amalgamation of non-Yahwistic religion. The religion of Israel was far more latitudinarian and complex than one would imagine from studying the religious beliefs recorded in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, the prohibitions in the Bible are sometimes, perhaps usually, an indication of the existence of a practice or belief deemed unattractive to the Deuteronomist or prophet.

Since Hezekiah is said to have removed the high places in which his father, Ahaz (16:4), had worshipped, and also to have cut down the pole of Asherah
, we may continue our investigation that there was some relation between the Nechushtan and Asherah. This is an option affirmed by Long: “This cultic object [the copper serpent] was apparently a fertility symbol associated with the mother goddess Asherah at Ras Shamra and pre-Israelite Beth-shan, and thus a Canaanite legacy in the Israelite-Judahite religion.”
³²⁵
It becomes more and more likely that the copper serpent, the Nechushtan, was a remnant from earlier religions competitive with Yahwism, but it is not obvious that the religion was Canaanite or that the serpent was associated with Asherah.
³²⁶
We have also seen that far more options are evident symbolically than “fertility” and that “life-giving” seems more representative of the serpent symbols that antedate and are contemporaneous with the time of Hezekiah. The Elohist in Numbers 21, as shown earlier, concluded his story of how Moses made a copper serpent, but stressed that it brought
life
to those who looked up to it.

The serpent cults near and within Jerusalem were perhaps “the widespread folk religion in Canaan.”
³²⁷
The cult was deeply entrenched in ancient Palestine, and thinking about its power and popularity helps us understand those who were Israelites and sacrificing through, and even to, Nechushtan. Along with their other contemporaries, that would have found the serpent to be an ideal—indeed fascinating—symbol for some of their ideas and hopes. With the Egyptians, they would have found the serpent to be a good symbol for power (Pos. 3), deity (Pos. 11), eternity (Pos. 12, cf. Pos. 27), royalty (Pos. 10), healing (Pos. 23), and life (Pos. 20). With the Canaanites, and those who were attached in some fashion to the serpent cults elsewhere, perhaps at Beth Shan and Dan, they would have seen the serpent as a symbol of rejuvenation and of the new life of spring (Pos. 26). With many others they could have seen the serpent as the symbol of wisdom (Pos. 18) and adhere to the creature, made by God (Gen 3), who knew what was beneath the earth (Pos. 15).

Summary

What then was the symbolic power of the serpent, according to the words of the Elohist in Numbers 21 and the Deuteronomist Historian in 2 Kings 18? First and foremost, the serpent represented healing. Like the caduceus that can be traced back to 3100
BCE
,
³²⁸
the upraised serpent that Moses is supposed to have made in the wilderness and that was worshipped later in the Temple was seen, at least in Numbers 21, to symbolize healing (Pos. 23) and life (Pos. 20). Those who were bitten by vipers could
look up
and be healed by God. The healing symbolic power of the serpent is deeply rooted in Near Eastern iconography, as we have abundantly demonstrated. The serpent as the symbol of life and healing extends in Western culture from at least the second millennium until the present. Perhaps the peak of interest in the serpent as the one who could heal and renew youth appeared in the Asclepian cult of the first and second centuries
CE
.

Second, for the citizens of Judah the serpent in 2 Kings 18, but not in Numbers 21, symbolized a god or divinity (Pos. 11). The Israelites in the Temple who revered Nechushtan most likely perceived the serpent as a celestial being either within God Yahweh’s heavenly court or a god other than Yahweh. Analogous serpent symbolism appeared in Egypt in which the serpent was a god. The serpent also symbolized the deity of the pharaoh. One sees repeatedly the uraeus on the heads of pharaohs and one is impressed by the winged serpents on Tutankhamen’s throne. Similar serpent iconography appeared in Mesopotamia and most likely in ancient Palestine. Henotheism never really ceased in Israel, not even with the clear proclamation of monotheism by Second Isaiah, and this author postdates Hezekiah’s reform.

Third, it is conceivable and may be probable that the serpent in the Temple also represented fertility and fruitfulness. This theme or dimension of serpent symbolism in Palestine is well established. The Beth Shan serpent cult comes immediately to mind. The serpents and the doves on incense stands from Beth Shan most likely signified the rebirth of the earth and its vegetation at springtime. The serpent, which goes underground seemingly whenever it wishes and hibernates during the winter because it is coldblooded, emerges with the coming of spring and warmth. The connection between serpent symbolism and Persephone, who also appears at spring from the underworld—the world of death—is evident in Greek and Roman symbolism. The connection in later Greek and Roman iconography and symbology helps us comprehend how the serpent earlier could indicate the rebirth of nature (Pos. 26). Most likely some who worshipped the serpent in the Temple may have thought about the serpent as a symbol of the fruitfulness of the earth (Pos. 2).

Fourth, the serpent Moses allegedly fashioned and the Nechushtan, if it is different from the one Moses made, most likely would have been seen by the Israelites who worshipped it, or through it, to embody power. It was upraised and perhaps denoted awesome divinity (Pos. 11 and 17). Thus, the serpent symbolized power (Pos. 3).