BIBLE DICTIONARY + WORD STUDY
How to read this: there is rarely one magic “true meaning” hidden behind an English word. A lexicon records a word’s semantic range. The intended meaning is narrowed by grammar, sentence, author, historical usage and context.
HEBREW / ARAMAIC · H5180
ne.chush.tan — Nehushtan
§ Nehushtan = "a thing of brass" name by which the brazen serpent made by Moses in the wilderness was worshipped in the time of king Hezekiah of Judah before he destroyed it
1 tagged verse occurrence · see every occurrence →Of copper; a brazen thing a name of contempt given to the serpent Moses had made in the wilderness (Num. 21:8), and which Hezekiah destroyed because the children of Israel began to regard it as an idol and “burn incense to it.” The lapse of nearly one thousand years had invested the “brazen serpent” with a mysterious sanctity; and in order to deliver the people from their infatuation, and impress them with the idea of its worthlessness, Hezekiah called it, in contempt, “Nehushtan,” a brazen thing, a mere piece of brass (2 Kings 18:4).
Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897). Historical dictionary wording reflects the scholarship and language of its era.
