Graven Images... a no-no.., page 2

Hey there, Pineapple (upside-down):

You wrote: ��yes, King Solomon did those things�but Solomon has also been guilty of breaking other commandments such as Murder and Adultery��

First off, it was DAVID and NOT his illegitimate half Jebusite son (through Bath-Shebiti, the Jebusite Princess) nicknamed �Solomon� (i.e. Jedediah) who did all that Adultery (bathSheba/Bath-Shebiti) and Murder (of Uriah) in II Samuel (yet still could be called a Man after YHWH�s own heart!_ , so be a little more careful with your facts�

But back to the Numbers 21:5 pericope in the TORAH regarding Moses� Bronze Snake Idol Thingy on a Pole, grammatically linked to the cultic Burning of Incense in many other places in the Old Testament:

Looks like you�ve opened a big can of snakes�er� worms�. with this one ! But I will try to be brief�the text of Numbers 21:5-9 is corrupt in the MSS (LXX, MT, Qumran, SamPent and Targums), and the Rebbes throughout the centuries were clearly embarrassed by this little episode of Moses which was so ancient, they couldn�t just toss out�

Take a look at some of the the �incense burning� cognate links to the to the Bronze-Snake-Idol- that YHWH commands �Mosheh� to smelt into an Idol as the writer of 2 Kings 18:4) understood the story:

�And Hezekiah demolished all the high places, and smashed all the idols, and cut down all the groves, and ground to powder the brass serpent (idol) that Moses had made: for in those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it: and [Hezekiah] nicknamed it �Nehushtan�.--2 Kings 18:4.
Remember the old silver screen classic film Mutiny on the Bounty with Clark Gable (1935)?

The made-up character of �Roger Byrham� asks Hiti-Hiti the King of the Tahitians: �Why does your language have so many words for �look�, Hiti-Hiti?? There�s a word for the downcast look, a different word for surprised look, a different word for the come hither look��etc.

To which Hiti-hiti replies swiftly pointing to his eye: �Well� many-kinda- look!�

It is very much the same thing with ancient languages especially Hebrew, made even more difficult because the Paleo Hebrew text in the book of Numbers has no vowels, and it is difficult to know what actual words are being meant here.

Context may help a little here. In the Hezekiah periscope, clearly you can see that the �sons of Israel� had taken to the burning of incense to the Nahash --- they were not merely just �looking upon it�.

But what did YHWH command Mosheh to tell the people to �actually do� with the Molten Image/Idol he made him smelt and �stick up on a pole� besides merely gazing upon it to be saved from snake bite?

Seems like most of the original cultic meaning has been obscured over the centuries (under the heading �Things in the Torah Embarassing to Moses�)
In other OT books, there is a curious link between �looking upon� and �burning incense� (i.e. worshipping) in Hebrew cultic technical language (perhaps the writer of John�s gospel had this kind of thing in the back of his mind when he included the Son of Man hanging from a Pole story in his gospel, linked to his quotation of a later verse from Zechariah, �and they shall �Look Upon Him� whom they have Pierced, and shall mourn as though for an Only Son in that Day�)

See Amos 5:22 "Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not smell them : I will not look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.

(�look upon� in parallelism with �smell� (KJV = �accept�) = the cultic sense of �smelling a sacrifice� e.g. is cultically incense related to �looking� in the older pre-Exilic Hebrew of Amos)

Or see another early pre-Exilic Hebrew verse:= same parallelism with word INCENSE spelled out clearly :

=proto-Isaiah 17:8 =

He will not �smell� the altars, the work of his hands, Nor will he �look upon� that which his fingers have made, Even the Asherim and the incense stands.

Notice how the word �regard� is in poetic parallelism to �look upon� : and the term �regard� is a technical cultic term for burning incense among other things, so the two are related in purely cultic setting in this case

Here are some other ancient usages for �ra�ah� =see, look upon)

Numbers 15:39 (look in the sense of �study intently�) = It shall be a tassel for you to look upon and remember all the commandments of YHWH�
Psalms 119�6 (look in the sense of meditate intently upon)
In that Day I shall not be ashamed When I look upon all Your commandments

Psalms 123:2 (look in the sense of look up to in worship, although the verb missing in some MSS) = As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes shall look to our god YHWH, Until He is gracious to us.
Hezekiah�s cute pejorative nickname for the Midianite Snake Idol Fetish �Nehushtan� comes from the Hebrew �nahash� (�snake� or even �omen-diviner�) and �[na]tan/[yi�ten] = �dedicated to) therefore, �dedicated to Nahash�,

i.e. a Cult Object dedicated in the Jerusalem Temple of YHWH [and Ashereah] in pre Exilic Israel.

In Numbers, the words used are: �and Mosheh made a �nachash-necheshet� and set it �upon on a pole��

�Nechoshet� can mean �bronze or copper ore� to make �bronze armor plate� (i.e. like snakeskin is kind of plated with scales):
Necheshet can also mean �shiny, moist or slinky� i.e. �lustful, erotic, alluring�

This particular Midianite Snake Idol Fetish of Moses must have been from an extremely early period for the socalled Hebrew �monotheists� to allow such a pagan Idol in the Temple of YHWH to be worshipped alongside YHWH for so many centuries !

There is also a curious linkage with the cognates for�burning� (seraphim) with this Snake Idol of Moses.

The original command placed into YHWH�s mouth to Moses was to make �a seraph (�burning�) serpent because the �people� were being �bitten� by �ha nechashim seraphim� = �burning snakes� =dragons (?)� or is the mangled Hebrew text supposed to say �nechashim ha sheraphim� (lit �swarming snakes�)?

Either way, you still have Moses making a Snake Idol and sticking it on a pole and the command was placed into the mouth of a clan god who later �detested� idols.

YOU'D NEVER KNOW IT BY READING NUMBERS 21:5-9 !!

Also, try to notice the curious linkage of the phrase �murmuring against �Mosheh� in the desert in this periscope in Numbers 21: the last time they �murmured� against Mosheh was �because Mosheh had married a Midianite woman�� so clearly �murmuring against Mosheh� and something about �Midian� have been consciously tied together by the writer here.

And the Midianite Snake Fetish Idols are well known to archaeology (although many other near eastern temple cults worshipped snakes of all metals, even the Egyptians.._)

The verb �to look upon� in the original story in Numbers 21:5-9 (Heb �Ra�ah�) is cognate with other verbs and nouns in paleo Hebrew that have a cultic connotation: cf other �seer� words (e.g. to �divine the future� e.g. a �Roeh� was �the old pejorative word for Prophet-Seer� in the Book of Amos �and Jereboam said, Thou, Seer, get thee back from whence thou came��) or in the Elisha periocopes.

So there is a cultic link for �see the future, look upon� and �divination�.
There is also the thorny issue of the Hebrew word for snake (nachash) which is also is cognate with �divination into the future (nechash), again, seems to be related in some way to a kind of cultic usage of the word, which the Hezekiah story certainly understood it to be.