He Broke the Bronze Serpent
1 Now in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. 3 He did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done. 4 He removed the high places, broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. 5 He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him. 6 For he joined with Yahweh. He didn’t depart from following him, but kept his commandments, which Yahweh commanded Moses. 7 Yahweh was with him. Wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria, and didn’t serve him. 8 He struck the Philistines to Gaza and its borders, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city. 9 In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it. 10 At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. 11 The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 12 because they didn’t obey Yahweh their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded, and would not hear it or do it.
The best king since David clears the high places at last — and smashes a genuine relic of Moses because people had started burning incense to it.
He removed the high places, broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan.
After three centuries of the same qualifying sentence — however, the high places were not taken away — a king finally removes them. Every good king of Judah since Asa has been assessed with that clause hanging off the verdict, and Hezekiah is the first to do the unpopular, locally resented thing.
He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan.
This is the sharpest act of the reform and the most instructive. The object was genuine — Moses made it at God's own instruction, and looking at it had saved lives in the wilderness Numbers 21:8–9. It was a real relic of a real deliverance, and by Hezekiah's day people were burning incense to it.
So a king destroys an authentic memorial of God's mercy because it had become an object of worship. The name he gives it as he breaks it is dismissive — it means something like bronze thing — and that is the whole argument: whatever it once carried, it is metal. A thing can be given by God, used by God, and still have to be destroyed when people start praying to it.
He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him.
The commendation is the strongest in the book, and it is worth setting beside the one Josiah receives — that none turned to Yahweh like him with all his heart 2 Kings 23:25. The two superlatives are not in competition; they measure different things, trust and turning, and the book is content to give each man the highest word available.
Yahweh was with him. Wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria, and didn’t serve him.
The rebellion is reported as part of the commendation, alongside the reform. Hezekiah's father had bought Assyrian protection with the temple gold and made Judah a client 2 Kings 16:8; the son stops paying. It is a decision of enormous risk, and the book files it under trust rather than under strategy.
11 The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 12 because they didn’t obey Yahweh their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded, and would not hear it or do it.
And then the fall of Samaria is narrated a second time, briefly, dated into Hezekiah's own reign. The repetition is not carelessness. The reader is meant to see the two kingdoms side by side in the same years: the north deported for breaking the covenant, the south under a king who has just torn down every high place in the country. Judah's reprieve and Israel's destruction happen within six years of each other, and the difference is standing in the temple with a hammer.
What follows immediately is the Assyrian army arriving at Judah's gates anyway. Reform does not purchase immunity, and the next two chapters are about what it does purchase.
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