The Nehushtan Principle: Smashing Good Idols Text: 2 Kings 18:1-6
Introduction: The Intolerance of True Worship
We live in an age that prizes tolerance above all other virtues. But the tolerance of our day is a cheap, flabby thing. It is the tolerance of a man who believes in nothing, and so is willing to put up with anything. The God of Scripture, however, is a consuming fire. He is not a deity to be added to a pantheon of other respectable gods. He is not one option among many. He is the Lord, and He will not share His glory with another. True worship, therefore, is necessarily intolerant. It is exclusive. It builds walls. It tears down idols. It makes distinctions. And this is precisely what we see in the glorious reformation of King Hezekiah.
Hezekiah inherited a mess. His father, Ahaz, was a piece of work, a truly wicked king who had shut the doors of the temple, set up pagan altars on every street corner in Jerusalem, and even sacrificed his own son in the fire. Judah was a spiritual train wreck, a nation drowning in the filth of syncretism and idolatry. And into this disaster steps a twenty-five-year-old king who, by the grace of God, understood that half-measures would not do. A little bit of Yahweh and a little bit of Baal was not a compromise; it was treason. Hezekiah’s reformation was not a gentle negotiation with the culture. It was a declaration of war on every spiritual competitor, and it stands as a permanent lesson for the church in every age. We are always tempted to accommodate, to blend in, to find a respectable middle ground with the spirit of the age. Hezekiah teaches us that the first act of true revival is the smashing of idols, even, and especially, the ones with a venerable history.
The Text
Now it happened in the third year of Hoshea, the son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king. He was twenty-five years old when he became king; and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that David his father had done. He took away the high places and shattered the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel were burning incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan. He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. So he clung to Yahweh; he did not turn away from following Him, but kept His commandments, which Yahweh had commanded Moses.
(2 Kings 18:1-6 LSB)
The Davidic Standard (vv. 1-3)
The account begins by setting the historical scene and giving us the foundational evaluation of Hezekiah’s reign.
"And he did what was right in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that David his father had done." (2 Kings 18:3 LSB)
Notice the standard. Hezekiah isn’t measured against his wicked father Ahaz. That would be a low bar indeed. He isn’t even measured against some of the other “good” kings who came before him, many of whom did what was right, but with a significant “but” attached. The text says they did right, “yet the high places were not taken away” (2 Kings 15:4, 35). Hezekiah is measured against the gold standard of Israelite kingship: David. This is the benchmark for covenant faithfulness. David was a man after God’s own heart not because he was sinless, he most certainly was not, but because when he sinned, he repented with his whole heart, and because he established true worship at the center of Israel’s life. Hezekiah’s reformation was a return to this Davidic, whole-hearted, exclusive worship of Yahweh.
This is also a beautiful picture of God’s sovereign grace. A godly son can come from a godless father. We are not doomed by our heritage. God can raise up reformers from the ruins of apostasy. Hezekiah’s mother, Abi, was the daughter of a certain Zechariah, who may well have been a faithful man who instilled truth in the young prince even as his father was wrecking the kingdom. God always preserves a remnant and a seed.
The Iconoclast King (v. 4)
Verse four gets to the heart of the matter. Hezekiah’s righteousness was not a private, sentimental piety. It was public, aggressive, and destructive.
"He took away the high places and shattered the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel were burning incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan." (2 Kings 18:4 LSB)
Hezekiah goes further than his predecessors. He tackles the long-standing problem of the “high places.” These were local shrines, often on hilltops, where people would worship. Some were dedicated to pagan gods, but many were dedicated to Yahweh. The problem was that God had commanded centralized worship in Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 12). These high places, even when used with good intentions, represented a syncretistic, will-worship that was contrary to God’s explicit command. They were a compromise, a blending of Canaanite practice with Israelite faith. Hezekiah understood that obedience is not a negotiation. He also shattered the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah poles, which were explicit symbols of pagan fertility cults. This was a direct assault on the sexual and religious deviancy of the surrounding culture.
But then he does something truly radical. He smashes the bronze serpent. Remember the story from Numbers 21. The people were dying from snakebites, and God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Anyone who looked at it in faith would be healed. It was a God-ordained symbol of salvation. It was a type of Christ Himself, as Jesus tells us in John 3. It was a museum-quality artifact, a tangible link to the miracles of the exodus and the ministry of Moses. And Hezekiah melts it down.
Why? Because a good thing had become a god-thing. The people were burning incense to it. They were no longer looking through the symbol to the God who saves; they were worshipping the symbol itself. A tool of grace had become an object of idolatry. And so Hezekiah gives it a dismissive nickname: “Nehushtan.” This is a play on the Hebrew words for bronze, serpent, and filth. He is essentially saying, “This holy relic you’re all bowing down to? It’s just a piece of brass.” This is the Nehushtan principle: any good thing, any tradition, any past blessing, any religious artifact, or any ministry model that begins to take the place of God Himself must be smashed. We must be ruthless in identifying and destroying our Nehushtans.
The Heart of the Matter (v. 5)
Verse five explains the internal reality that produced these external actions. Hezekiah’s iconoclasm was not born of rage, but of faith.
"He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him." (2 Kings 18:5 LSB)
This is the root that produced the fruit of reformation. He trusted. The Hebrew word here is batach, which means to have confident, unwavering reliance. Hezekiah’s trust was not in political alliances, military strength, or religious relics. His trust was in the living God of Israel. This is why he could afford to be so radical. He wasn’t worried about offending the traditionalists who loved their high places. He wasn’t afraid of the sentimentalists who cherished their bronze serpent. His fear of God was greater than his fear of man. His trust in God was total.
This exclusive trust is what set him apart. The text says there was none like him, before or after. Not even the great reformer Josiah, who came later, receives this exact commendation. This is because Hezekiah’s trust was tested in the crucible of the Assyrian invasion, where he stood virtually alone against the superpower of his day, and his trust in Yahweh did not waver. True reformation is always the result of a radical trust in God alone.
The Shape of Trust (v. 6)
The final verse in our text describes the practical shape of this trust. How do we know he trusted God? Because he obeyed Him.
"So he clung to Yahweh; he did not turn away from following Him, but kept His commandments, which Yahweh had commanded Moses." (2 Kings 18:6 LSB)
The language here is intimate and tenacious. “He clung to Yahweh.” The word is dabaq, the same word used in Genesis to describe a husband clinging to his wife. It means to be stuck like glue, to be passionately and loyally attached. This was not a formal, distant religion. This was a living, covenantal relationship.
And this clinging love expressed itself in obedience. Faith is never a bare, intellectual assent. True trust always results in a life that keeps God’s commandments. Notice the standard again: not the traditions of the elders, not the cultural consensus, but “His commandments, which Yahweh had commanded Moses.” Hezekiah’s reformation was a back-to-the-Bible movement. He measured everything by the plumb line of God’s written Word. His trust was not a vague feeling; it was a rugged, obedient loyalty to the revealed will of God.
Conclusion: Smashing Your Nehushtans
The story of Hezekiah is a perennial call to reformation for the people of God. We are all master craftsmen of idols. We take the good gifts of God, family, career, ministry success, theological traditions, even past spiritual experiences, and we begin to burn a little pinch of incense to them. We start to trust in them, to find our identity in them, to look to them for the security and meaning that can only be found in God.
What is your Nehushtan? What is that “piece of brass” in your life that was once a means of God’s grace but has now become a substitute for God’s grace? Is it a political ideology that you trust more than the kingdom of God? Is it a particular style of worship that has become more important than the object of worship? Is it a memory of a past revival that you keep trying to replicate, instead of trusting the living God in the present?
To be a Christian is to be an iconoclast, first in our own hearts, and then in the world. We are called to follow the greater Hezekiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to smash the ultimate idol of self-righteousness and to cleanse the temple of our hearts. He trusted His Father completely, He clung to Him, and He obeyed Him, even to the point of death on a cross. That cross is our ultimate Nehushtan, not as a piece of wood to be venerated, but as the symbol of God’s salvation to be looked upon in faith. When we trust in Christ, we are given the grace to identify our own idols. And by that same grace, we are given the courage to call them what they are, a mere piece of brass, and to smash them to pieces, so that we might cling to Yahweh, and Him alone.