 The tradition of naming it Nehushtan is not considered to be any older than the time of Hezekiah.In the Gospel of John, Jesus discusses his destiny with a Jewish teacher named Nicodemus and makes a comparison between the raising up of the Son of Man and the act of the serpent being raised by Moses for the healing of the people.Jesus applied it as a foreshadowing of his own act of salvation through being lifted up on the cross, stating "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up