Topic
Serpent Worship
2 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- 1 Kings 1:9ISBE
And Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by En-rogel, and called all his brethren the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah the king’s servants:
- 2 Kings 18:4ISBE
¶ 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.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 2 references
wur'-ship: Traces of this superstition are thought by certain critics to be discoverable in the religion of Israel. Stade mentions that W. R. Smith supposed the serpent to be the totem of the house of David (Geschichte, I, 465). H. P. Smith says: "We know of a Serpent's Stone near Jerusalem, which was the site of a sanctuary (1Ki 1:9), and this sanctuary was dedicated to Yahweh" (Hist of Old Testament, 239, 240). Special reliance is placed on the narrative of the brazen serpent, which Hezekiah is recorded to have destroyed as leading to idolatry, (2Ki 18:4). "In that case," says H. P. Smith, "we must treat the Nehushtan as a veritable idol of the house of Israel, which had been worshipped in the temple from the time of its erection. Serpent worship is so widespread that we should be surprised not to find traces of it in Israel" (ut supra). In the same line, see G. B. Gray, Nu, 275-76. The fancifulness of these deductions is obvious.
See NEHUSHTAN.
James Orr
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.