NEHTTVI
928
NEIEL
Kings i, 40), so that Nehiloth is the general term for perforated wind-instruments of all kinds, as Neginoth denotes all manner of stringed instruments. The title of Psa. V is therefore addressed to the conductor of the Temple choir who i)layed upon flutes and the like, and these are directly alluded to in Psa. Ixxxvii, 7, where (aibb'n, choMiiu) '■ the players upon instruments" who are associated with the singers are properly "pipers" or "flute-players" (Smith). See Fi-ute. Others, like Aben-Kzra among rabbinical commentators, and Hitzig among living scliolars, understand it, to be the name of an air to which the psalm was sung, "after, or accord- ing to, the inheritance." Fiirst suggests that Xe/iilotk was a musical clioir, having their chief seat at a town which bore a cognate name, perhaps Hilen (I Chron. vi, 58: comp. his explanation oi Xe'jino(h) (Fairbairn). The use of the preposition ^X in this connection does not justify the rendering " upon," but requires us to un- derstand that the psalm under consideration was to be chanted in imi/ation or in the style of (a la) the air or musical instrument in question. See Psalms.
Ne'hum (Ileb. Xechum', d"np, if genuine, i. q. Xahum, i. c. consoled, but prob. by erroneous transcrip- tion for C"n"i, i.e. Rechiim; Sept. 'Ivaovft, but most MSS. have Nooi''/i ; Vulg. Nahum), one of the Israelites who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel (Neh. vii, 7) ; called ItiiiifM (q. v.) in the parallel list (Ezra ii, 2).
Nehush'ta (Heb. Nechushta', XR'iJnp, copper; Sept. "Sitn^a v. r. NrtiffSa; Vulg. Nohesia), the daugh- ter of Elnathan of Jerusalem, wife of Jehoiakim, and mother of Jehoiachin, kings of Judah (2 Kings xxiv,8). E.C. cir. G16.
Nehush'taii (Heb. Nechushtan', "JPl'lin?, of cop- per, with the art.; Sept. T^iiir^av, v. r. ^ta^dv and even iVtcr.r«,\f i ; Vulg. Nohestun), a contemptuous name given to the copper (" brazen") serpent which 3Ioses had made during the plague in the wilderness (Numb. xxi, 8 sq.), and which the Israelites worshipped (2 I'lings xviii, 4). Sec Brazen Seri'KXT. " One of the lirst acts of Hezekiah, ujion coming to the throne of Judah, was to destroy all traces of the idolatrous rites which had gained such a fast hold upon the people dur- ing the reign of his father Ahaz. Among other objects of superstitious reverence and worship was this singular metallic effigy, which was preserved throughout the wanderings of the Israelites, probably as a memorial of their deliverance, and according to a late tradition was placed in the Temple. The lapse of nearly a thousand years had invested this ancient relic with a mysterious sanctity which easily degenerated into idolatrous rever- ence, and at the time of Ilezekiah's accession it had evidently been long an object of worship, 'for unto those (lays the children of Israel did burn incense to it,' or as the Hebrew more fully implies, 'had been in the habit of burning incense to it' (C"''H:2|?'3 l"^!!, hod been incense-burners). The expression points to a settled practice. It is evident that our translators by their rendering, 'And he called it Nehushtan,' understood with many commentators that the subject of the sen- tence is Hezekiah, and that when he destroyed the brazen serpent he gave it the name Nehushtan, 'a brazen thing,' in token of his utter contempt, and to impress upon the people the idea of its worthlessness. Tills rendering has the support of the Sept. and Vulgate, Junius and Tremellius, Milnster, Clericus, and others; but it is better to understand the Hei)rew as referring , to the name by which the serpent was generally known, the subject of the verb being indelinite— and one called it ^ Nehiishtini.' Such a construction is common, and instances of it may be found in (Jen. xxv, 2G; xxxviii, 29, 30, where our translators correctly render *liis name was called,' and in (Jen. xlviii, 1, 2. Tliis was tlie view taken in the Targ. Jon. and in the Peshito-Syriac, 'And they called it Nehushtan,' which Buxtorf approves (/yw^
Se7-p. yEn. cap. vi). It has the support of Luther, Pfeif- fer (Dub. Vex. cent. 3, loc. 5), J. D. Michaelis {/iibelfur UngeL), and Bunsen {Bibelwerk), as well as of Ewald {Gesch. iii, G22), Keil, Thenius, and most modern com- mentators" (Smith). See Hezekiah. '"The fact of the preservation of the brazen serpent till the time of Hezekiah is, as Bunsen remarks, a sufficient guarantee not only for the historical truth of the iiarrative in Numbers, but also for the religious signilicancy of the symbol; for had it been, as some have supposed, an image of Satan, it would not have been sull'ered by David or Solomon to remain {Bibelwerk, v, 217). The fact also that it is referred to by our Lord, as in some sense resembling him (Jolm iii, 14, lo),not only vouches for the same things, but further imposes on us the duty of seeking in it a deeper signiticancy than that which the mere narrative of Moses would lead us to attach to it. We may, therefore, dismiss at once all the attempts of rationalists to resolve the facts of the Mosaic nar- rative into mere ordinary occurrences; such as tliat of Bauer, who finds in the cure of the Israelites by looking at the brazen serpent only an instance of the curative power of the imagination (llebr. Gesch. ii, 320), or that of Paulus, who thinks that the brazen serpent being at some distance from the camp, and tlie sight of it mov- ing the Israelite who had been bitten to walk to it, the motion thereby produced served to work otT the eftiects of the poison, and so tended to a cure (Comment, iv, I, 198 sq.); or that of Hofmann, who ingeniously suggests that the brazen serpent was the title of a rural hospital, where medicine and doctors were to be found by those who had faith to go for them. It is sad to see a man like Bunsen falling back on the old exploded rational- istic explanation of this occurrence. ' The fixing of the gaze on the image brouglit the mind to a state of re- pose, and so made the bodily cure possible' (Bibelwerl; v, 217), as if this were all ! We may pass over also the notion of Marsham, according to whom the serpent of brass was an implement of magic or incantation bor- rowed from the Egj^ptians, who he says ' imprimis /iayti'^t Tivl kirix^opiii> ob serpentum incantationem ce- lebrantur' (Canon Chron. p. 148); for this is so purely gratuitous, and so opposed to the narrative of ISIoses, as well as the religious principles and feelings which he sought to inculcate (comp. Lev. xix, 2(>). that it must be at once rejected (see Deyling, Obs. .Sue. ii, 210 sq.). The traditionary belief of the ancient Jews is that the brazen serpent was the symbol of salvation, and that healing came to the sufferer who looked to it as the result of his faith in God, who had ajipointed this method of cure" (Kitto). See Schachan. De ser- pentis wnei significiidone (Lubec, 1713); Niilting, I)e serp. an. Servatoris t>/po (Jen. 1759); Huth, ,'<erpens exaltatus nan contritionis sed conterendi iniago (Erlang. 1758). See Seupent.