Rev. Don Campbell
Numbers 21-22
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, March 4, 2019
AS MOSES LIFTED UP THE SERPENT
After wandering for nearly 40 years in the wilderness, the second generation was advancing toward the promised land when they were attacked by the Canaanites. They vowed a vow to the Lord: “If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction” (Numbers 21:2). They stand in contrast to their faithless fathers who wanted to stone Joshua and Caleb who said, “If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey” (Number 14:8).
However, 40 years had not totally eradicated unbelief: “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’ Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (Numbers 21:4-9).
This was not the response of a peevish god. “Rather, it was a sign that was full of meaning for the Israelites, who had only a few years earlier emerged from Egypt and were therefore well-versed in Egyptian symbolism. These serpents were a potent representation of the power of Egypt, to which they were apparently so eager to return. Snakes were well-known symbols of power and sovereignty in ancient Egypt, as the familiar image of a cobra on Pharaoh’s crown reminds us. Having once been freed from Pharaoh, did they really want to be subject to the power of the serpent all over again? (R. Kent Hughes. Preaching the Word – Numbers: God’s Presence in the Wilderness. Crossway Books).
Jesus comments on this event: “And 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” (John 3:14-15). Jesus does not give an extended comparison, and neither should we. There seem to be two comparisons. First, each was God’s appointed means of salvation: one from snakebite and one from sin; two the necessity of faith in God’s appointed means of salvation.
CONNECTIONS – Hebrews 12:1-2
1. There is a parallel between the ancients wanting to go back to Egypt and some first-century believing Jews who wanted to go back to Judaism. The Hebrew writer exhorts: “Let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race set before us” (12:1-2). Every weight would include discontentment, which springs from unbelief. What weight is hindering you? What sin is clinging to you?
2. Upon what are we to look as we run the race?
