Moses and the Bronze Serpent
Open Your Bible
Numbers 21:4-9, John 3:1-21
BY Guest Writer
Text: Numbers 21:4-9, John 3:1-21
When we know what to look for, we can find Bible teachers everywhere.
For example, the next time you see an ambulance, look for the blue symbol of a snake wrapped around a pole. Perhaps, like many of us, snakes (and ambulances) give you the heebie jeebies and your eyes naturally want to look away. But pay attention, friend. That obscure little symbol is preaching the gospel.
Smack dab in the middle of the Exodus epic, we find a strange little story. As the Israelites moved from Egypt toward the Promised Land, they developed a chronic grumbling problem. Despite repeated warnings and punishment for complaining against God and Moses (Numbers 11:1, 14:2), God’s people continued to bellyache. God’s judgment for this sin is found in Numbers 21:6:
“Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and they bit them so that many Israelites died.”
The fact that God takes sin so seriously makes me squirm like a snake myself. When I see that He won’t skip judgment for those offenses I’d call “inconsequential”—like grumbling—I squirm even more. But God’s judgment and mercy are inseparable. When you see judgment in His Word, or feel it in your own life, look deeper. Once flipped over, we see that God’s infinite mercy is on the other side of that coin.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake image and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. Whenever someone was bitten, and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered.’”
-Numbers 21:8-9
God delivered judgment, but then He delivered mercy. This wasn’t back-peddling or flip-flopping. It was His divine nature on full display. Because He is holy, He must deal with our sin. Because He is love, He chooses to offer us mercy.
When the grumbling Israelites looked to the bronze serpent held high on a pole, they were saved from the punishment they deserved. Mercifully, God used the emblem of His judgment to draw His people back to Himself. That’s good news for them that points to even better news for us.
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life.”
-John 3:14-15
Don’t miss this—it’s too wonderful!
The Israelites looked to a snake on a pole for healing from poisonous venom.
We look to the Savior on the cross to heal us from the poison of sin.
They were given an injunction against immediate physical death.
We’re saved from spiritual death, and granted eternal life instead.
I doubt the Israelites wanted to fix their eyes on a bronze snake while actual snakes were striking at their heels. But God needed them to look hard at His judgment so they could receive His mercy.
Like the snake-bitten Israelites, we’re sinners deserving of God’s judgment. It’s tempting to look away from that truth. But, look! His mercy is easy to spot. God uses the cross, the emblem of His judgment, to draw us back to Himself.
Because of our sin, the cross was necessary. That’s judgment. Yet, from the cross, Jesus took the punishment we deserve, and in His mercy, He overcame the Snake and death once and for all (Hebrews 2:14). What mercy!
Look past God’s servant Moses, and see the God who delivers both righteous judgment and loving mercy. Look past the snake on the pole and see the Savior on the cross.
Erin Davis is an author, blogger, and speaker who loves to see women of all ages run to the deep well of God’s Word. When she’s not writing, you can find Erin chasing chickens and children on her small farm in the Midwest.
54 thoughts on "Moses and the Bronze Serpent"
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Excellent write up. Blessed.
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The serpent was brass: solid, but not as solid as iron, as spoken of by Daniel when explaining Alexander the Great’s coming takeover, prophesied in Nebuchadnezar’s dream. Jesus was sinless, but yet he was a man, while the Father is iron. Man is evil, as Jesus said in the sermon on the mount. The serpent, Satan, made man fall to him, to evil. Jesus is the brass serpent therefore. Also, notice how Nehushtan is the name of the brass serpent, and Nehushta is the (curiously supplied) name of the mother (2 Kings 24:8) of Jehoiachin. Jehoiachin, an evil king, was the last king of Judah before the carrying away of the people into Babylon. The Baylonian captivity lasted 70 years before Cyrus allowed the return to rebuild the temple, all as prophesied by Jesus from the mouth of Isaiah. The Romans destroyed the temple, as Jesus himself prophesied, in 70 AD, necessitating the rebuilding of the Jewish religion. They didn’t need a temple for sacrifice anymore, however, and there was a new covenant, a new name for the faith springing up as the prophet said, because Jesus was the last sacrifice; the veil tearing upon the moment of his death, and his blood dripping from the cross, down through the broken asunder earth by the concomitant earthquake, and on to the Ark of the Covenant in Jeremiah’s grotto, according to Biblical archaeologist Ron Wyatt, who claims he subsequently had the blood analyzed in an Israeli lab and found it had only 24 chromosomes. During Jesus’ whole life, and even after his resurrection, which they knew about, the Pharisees held the temple in Babylonian-esque captivity on the behalf of the Romans. God destroyed the temple as before, necessitating the new covenant be followed, but just as beforehand when they had returned from Babylon, the Jews resisted–yet again–a return to God with their hearts. They had already done this when Moses came down with the ten commandments after miracles and wonder wrought on their behalf delivered them from slavery by the hand of God. They did it repeatedly in the time of the Judges. Solomon himself and much of his progeny did it. They did it in the time of the Maccabees, after their return from Babylon. They did it yet again after Jesus’ resurrection, despite Joseph of Arimathea’s and the resurrected sons of Simeon’s perfectly corroborating testimonies (at the mouth of two or three witnesses will all be eatablished). Even Israel himself wrestled with Jesus, giving him his name “strives with God”! Amen.
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The Snake represented sin and Judgement the Rod or pole represented Righteousness and Mercy. The wages of sin is death thus Jesus took the punishment and died for us at the Cross, whoever believes in Him will not perish but have ever lasting life.❣️
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Moses lifted up a Bronze Serpent. Be it a symbol of Judaism and medicine, we read that many looked on it and were saved. Jesus was baptized, filled with the Holy Ghost, and preached for three years of his ministry in Galilee, Samaria, and across the land of Judea. When the Son of Man was hung, he caused many to look at him as a sign of repentance. They too had been Saved! #OhWhatJoyisJesus
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And I like to add to that that because of our sin God uses a cross which is the judgment you’re right and Jesus death on the cross for our sins and yet he uses the process of us picking up our cross daily to follow him which God uses to bring us back to himself.
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You could also add that because of our sin God uses the cross judgment Jesus death on the cross for our sins and yet our process of picking up our cross to follow him is a way that God uses to bring us back to himself.
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