SUMMARY
Once again, the people complain against God and Moses. God sends poisonous serpents as punishment, but provides a bronze serpent on a pole so that a person who had been bitten could “look at the serpentA serpent is described as the snake who tricked Eve into disobeying God in the Garden of Eden. Elsewhere a serpent appears in narratives relating to Moses, in the Psalms, and in Isaiah. Jesus invoked the image of serpents and snakes in his preaching; and... More of bronze and live.”
ANALYSIS
This is the final murmuring story in the wilderness, and everything has escalated. The narrator tells us clearly that the rebellion is against both God and Moses. Worse, now the people “despise” the manna as “worthless food”–that is, they reject the very graceGrace is the unmerited gift of God's love and acceptance. In Martin Luther's favorite expression from the Apostle Paul, we are saved by grace through faith, which means that God showers grace upon us even though we do not deserve it. More of God. No wonder, then, that death is the result; they have refused God’s gift of life. God sends poisonous snakes, called in Hebrew “fiery” serpents, perhaps because of the pain caused by their bites. (Some later interpreters have wondered whether these snakes may have been the guinea worms that have continued to plague people in that part of the world.) The snakes provoke repentance and an appeal for Moses to pray to God on their behalf. The account illustrates the power of intercessory prayer in the theology behind these stories. Moses’ prayer prevails upon God to set aside the punishment, even though the people had brought it on themselves by rejecting the promise and preferring a life of slavery.
This is the final murmuring story in the wilderness, and everything has escalated. The narrator tells us clearly that the rebellion is against both God and Moses. Worse, now the people “despise” the manna as “worthless food”–that is, they reject the very grace of God. No wonder, then, that death is the result; they have refused God’s gift of life. God sends poisonous snakes, called in Hebrew “fiery” serpents, perhaps because of the pain caused by their bites. (Some later interpreters have wondered whether these snakes may have been the guinea worms that have continued to plague people in that part of the world.) The snakes provoke repentance and an appeal for Moses to pray to God on their behalf. The account illustrates the power of intercessory prayer in the theology behind these stories. Moses’ prayer prevails upon God to set aside the punishment, even though the people had brought it on themselves by rejecting the promise and preferring a life of slavery.
Anthropologists of religion would call the use of the bronze serpent an example of homeopathic or sympathetic magic–that is, the notion that like cures like, or like ushers in like. When rain dancers pour water on the ground to invoke a similar response by the deity, they are using homeopathic magic. The story in Numbers is willing to use this risky method of healing (risky, because magic is forbidden in the Old Testament) because, in the Bible, God generally heals through means understood at the time (an example of God’s inherent tendency toward incarnation). The story is spared being understood as magic, however, because the healing brought by the bronze serpent is not automatic. The individual sufferer must look at the serpent–seen here, no doubt, as an act of faith in God’s promise of healing. And, of course, the individual would be one of those who have already repented of their sin in v. 7.
The bronze serpent does eventually become dangerous, however, because people continue to seek it out as a cure, long after the end of the plague of the fiery snakes. Eventually, Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent because the Israelites started burning incense to it (2 King 18:4). Jesus uses the story in a similar way in John’s Gospel. Just as God lifted up the serpent to give life to Israel, so God will lift up Jesus. Salvation through Jesus, too, will not come automatically, but is embraced by faith, so that “whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).
