Today's Favorite Verse: 2 Kings 18:3-4, 6

Today's Favorite Verse: 2 Kings 18:3-4, 6

"And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did.

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.

For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses."

I was just so happy to read about Hezekiah reign as king of Judah. It seems like such a long dry spell of having a righteous king. Over two hundred years this has been a continual issue. I did wonder why it included breaking the brasen serpent that Moses made. This article shed even great light on the subject.

"Israelites often murmured against God and His prophet, Moses. The Lord sent among the people “fiery serpents” that threatened great destruction as a punishment. As a means of physical salvation and as a type of the spiritual salvation to be wrought by Jesus Christ, Moses made a serpent of brass, placed it on a pole, and taught his people that if they would gaze upon the serpent when they were bitten, physical healing would follow. The brass serpent was preserved in Israel and, in time, became an object of adoration and was worshiped by the Israelites much as they worshiped idols. In his zeal to eradicate all forms of idolatry in Judah, King Hezekiah had the brazen serpent destroyed along with the idols.The word nehushtan comes from the Hebrew and means an object made of brass. The implication may be that Hezekiah was speaking contemptuously of the object being worshiped, saying it was merely a “thing of brass” and nothing more."

(Old Testament Student Manual Kings-Malachi, The Fall of the Northern Kingdom (2 Kings 14-20), (12-20)

It made me ponder on the importance of not worshipping craftmanship and history over the ordinances in the house of the Lord. If the brass serpent had long turned from being a symbol of looking to the Lord and living, to only an idol to worship, then yes it truly did need to be removed. It wasn't what Moses had fashioned for a particular need and time, it was the words that Moses taught of the Lord that needed to be honored and obeyed.

Day 2490