THE SERPENT IN THE WILDERNESS (NUMBERS 21:1-9)

 

                       Sympathetic Healing (2009, collage)

After the Israelites in the wilderness turn to God for help against their Canaanite foes, they are able to defeat them completely (vv. 1-3). But soon forgetting this obvious sign of God's protection over them, they again start grumbling about the lack of good food and water (vv. 4-6). To teach them a lesson, God sends poisonous serpents among the people which wreak havoc. But after Moses again acts as intercessor with God on their behalf (v. 7), He relents and provides an unusual remedy for the people who have been bitten – a snake image made of bronze which is placed on a pole for the afflicted to gaze on and be cured (vv. 8-9).

It is these last two verses which have most troubled Bible scholars and many other readers. Witness the following comments, beginning with those of some more liberal commentators:

    “This story, describing some kind of sympathetic magic, may give the etiology [i.e. origin] for the snake image in the Temple (cf. 2 Kings 18:4).” (D.P. Wright)

    “A plausible explanation of the text is offered by those...who argue that Num 21:4-9 is mainly an etiology designed to explain why, as in 2 Kgs 18:4 indicates, the bronze serpent, Nehishtan..., was venerated in temple worship during the monarchic period.” (Wakely)

    According to form critics, “legends deal with holy people..., places...or events. Their purpose is to edify the listener or reader. Legends are centered on things that are alleged to transpire within the experience of human beings...The bronze serpent of Numbers 21:4-9 is thus considered to be legend, as is the explanation of circumcision (Gen 17).” (R.A. Taylor)

    Wenham summarizes this position: “But despite its familiarity, some writers have questioned the historicity of this incident, suggesting that it is a fictitious explanation of the origin of the bronze serpent in the temple destroyed by Hezekiah (2 Ki. 18:4). More fundamental is the question why this means was appointed to cure snake-bites. Why did not God use a miracle without resort to a potentially misleading symbol.”

Dealing first with the historical issue, Wenham reports the finding of a temple occupied by the Midianites not long after the time of the wilderness wanderings in which a 5'' long copper snake was found. Therefore, he mentions the possibility that both the Midianite temple and copper serpent were ideas borrowed from the Jewish tabernacle. Therefore, “it seems likely that the story of the brazen serpent is based on a historical incident, and is not merely a retrojection of a later writer's imagination.”

Instead of speculating over the hypothetical source of the story as a fictional creation, conservative scholars prefer instead to treat it as a factual event which has spiritual lessons to teach us:

    Carson notes, “Verse 7 contains the first real confession in the book...In Wis. 16:6f [The Wisdom of Solomon was an apocryphal OT book written in the inter-testamental period] the bronze snake is called 'a token of deliverance'...for he that turned toward it was saved, not by what he saw but by thee, the Savior of all.”

    “Thus was Israel taught that only in God was their deliverance. The simple invitation to look and live (cf. Is. 45:22) was a test of faith. Poisonous snakes could be rendered harmless only by the mercy of God.” (Thompson)

    “Along with the snake's paradoxical combination of wisdom and evil, it represents not only death but also health and life. Perhaps its ability to administer death seemed to imply authority over life. The image of the serpent in the wilderness allowed those bitten to 'look and live' (Num 21:6-9), just as looking to the Christ gives life instead of sure death (Jn 3:14-15). John invokes the image of the serpent on the cross even though historically the Israelites had retained it as an idol called Nehushtan, and it became a cause for stumbling (2 Kings 18:4).” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery)

    Other scholars mention the possibility that the snake's ability to shed his skin and grow it anew suggested it as an appropriate image of resurrection or renewed life.

    Stubbs: “The raising of the bronze serpent occurs at a turning point in Numbers – the seventh and final rebellion of Israel before they reach the plain of Moab...The high importance of the passage is matched only by the high level of bewilderment experienced by most modern interpreters in trying to make sense of it.”

He spends seven pages in his short Numbers commentary discussing various opinions concerning this difficult subject and comes to the following conclusion: “In contrast to these modern interpretations, serpent imagery elsewhere in the Bible leads one to see the serpent as a symbol associated with evil and sin...While the serpents could simply be a convenient method of punishment for YHWH, ready at hand in the wilderness, given the attention to the symbol in the passage, one might expect there to be a symbolic appropriateness to this punishment. At the most literal level, the serpents are agents of suffering and death...They are, and also come to represent, the physical difficulties of the journey to the promised land...In the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh (Exod. 4:3; 7:9,10,15), the serpent likely symbolized Egypt and her gods. In our passage, then, perhaps snakes represented God's punishment of Israel by a symbol of the object of their desires – life back in Egypt under the rule of the snake, Pharaoh, and the gods of Egypt.”

    “The point of lifting up the serpent may be to represent symbolically that the object was under the curse of God (cf. Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13).” (Bietenhard)

    And then there is Wenham's opinion to take into account: “I suggest that the clue to the symbolism should be sought in the general principles underlying sacrifices and purifactory rites in the Old Testament...In all these rituals there is an inversion: normally polluting substances or actions may in a ritual context have the opposite effect and serve to purify. Those inflamed and dying through the bite of living snakes were restored to life by a dead reddish-colored snake.”

    But the real clue to the interpretation of this confusing passage may lie in its use as background to John's later utilization in John 3:14-15 to make a theological analogy. These verses reads as follows: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

    Kostenberger comments that “the primary analogy established in the present passage [John 3:14-15] is not that of the raised bronze serpent and the lifted up Son of Man; rather Jesus [or John, since the lack of punctuation in the Greek makes the point ambiguous]likens the restoration of the people's physical lives as a result of looking at the bronze serpent to the people's reception of eternal life as a result of 'looking' in faith at the Son of Man. Yet, as in the case of wilderness Israel, it is ultimately not a person's faith, but rather the God in whom the faith is placed, that is the source of salvation (cf. Wis. 16:6-7).”

I would agree with Kostenberger wholeheartedly except for one point. I think that the direct comparison between the serpent and the lifted-up Jesus on the cross is quite germane to the whole meaning of the OT passage. Jesus on the cross took on all our sins and the associated death penalty so that we could also equate him very well symbolically with death of the evil snake. And just as the snake was lifted up, so too were Jesus and all who gaze on him lifted up to glory.