Brass Serpent - Numbers 21:1-9

Chapter 21 is a little bit different in that it talks about the people of Israel’s first military victory. A king in Canaan learned about the Hebrew’s coming and decided to do a pre-emptive strike in which he attacked part of the camp, he took some of the Israelite’s captive. The people went to God and promised that if He would deliver the attackers into their hands then they would utterly destroy their cities. God agreed, and Israel attacked the Canaanites, won, I assume they got their people back and then destroyed the cities.

For some reason, the Hebrews were again disappointed and complained against Moses, saying that they hated the manna that they were eating. “and the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.” But the people immediately recognized that the fiery serpents were sent because they had sinned and asked Moses to pray that the serpents would be taken away from them. Moses did pray for that, but instead of just taking the serpents away, God told Moses “make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.” So Moses made that brass serpent, put it on a pole and anyone who was bitten but looked upon the pole lived. TB’s whole lecture on this chapter talks about whether it was actually a serpent of a seraphim, and if the pole was a historical one used for other purposes, it’s interesting just nothing that I really care about right now.

This event is significant because it’s an absolute miracle that someone can be cured if a venomous snake bite just by looking at a brass pole, but also because in John 3:14 Jesus said, “and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so much the Son of man be lifted up.” This is about Jesus because Jesus said that it was about Jesus. It’s easy to look backward in hindsight and see the obvious connection but it’s also easy to understand why people at the time didn’t make the connection, they wouldn’t have had any of the context. It’s also interesting to consider that there were probably Israelites who died after this because they were bitten and refused to look and how easy is it to look at something. It’s like what’s the worst case scenario, you lose absolutely nothing just by looking. It’s kind of a commentary on the ease of believing. I’m kind of struggling with this right now, like do I really believe and if so how much, and who has ever told me not to believe? Who has ever made me doubt my testimony, and it’s interesting to think about. I’m essentially asking myself if it’s worth it to look upon the serpent or if I just want to doubt, and what does doubting actually mean in my case. Very interesting to think about.