Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 21:9
And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
9. Moses made a serpent of bronze ] The removing of a pest by means of a bronze image of it finds parallels in ancient Europe. See Gray, Numb. p. 276.
Num 21:10-11. P
Stages in the journey to the east of Moab
11 . The site of Oboth is unknown; ‘somewhere on the flinty plateau to the east of Edom, the Ard Suwwan or Flint Ground, Arabia Petraea’ (G. A. Smith, H. G. [Note: . G. Historical Geography of the Holy Land.] 557). Iye-abarim (Heb. ‘Iyy-h‘abhrm, ‘the Ruins of the ‘Abharim’) is stated to lie ‘over against Moab, on the sunrise (i.e. the eastern) side.’ ‘The ‘ Abharim ’ means ‘the parts on the other side,’ a name which was given to the district on the east of the Dead Sea, looked at from the point of view of a dweller in Palestine: cf. Num 27:12, Num 33:47 f. The name distinguishes it from the Iyim of Jos 15:29, which was in Judah, close to the Edomite border.
Many writers assign Num 21:10-11 to P , since the names Oboth and Iye-abarim recur in the list in ch. 33, which is from the hand of a priestly writer, and are found nowhere else in the O.T. According to that list (41 44) the itinerary was as follows: Mt Hor, Zalmonah, Punon, Oboth, Iye-abarim. The sites of Zalmonah and Punon are quite unknown. But the writer of 33, who clearly intends to trace the journey as completely as possible, omits all reference to the detour by the way to the Red Sea. If, therefore, Mt Hor is the modern Jebel Madurah (see on Num 20:22) on the west of Edom, and Iye-abarim is somewhere on the eastern border of Moab, it seems probable that the priestly traditions represented Israel as marching straight through Edom. Whether the account of the hostility of the king of Edom was unknown to P , or whether it was, for some reason, intentionally omitted, we cannot say. But it is noteworthy that in Dt. also there is no mention of it.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 9. And Moses made a serpent of brass] nechash nechosheth. Hence we find that the word for brass or copper comes from the same root with nachash, which here signifies a serpent, probably on account of the colour; as most serpents, especially those of the bright spotted kind, have a very glistening appearance, and those who have brown or yellow spots appear something like burnished brass: but the true meaning of the root cannot be easily ascertained.
On the subject of the cure of the serpent-bitten Israelites, by looking at the brazen serpent, there is a good comment in the book of Wisdom, Apoch. Wis 16:4-12, in which are these remarkable words: “They were admonished, having a sign of salvation, (i. e., the brazen serpent,) to put them in remembrance of the commandments of thy law. For he that turned himself towards It was not saved by the THING that he saw, but by THEE, that art the Saviour of all.” To the circumstance of looking at the brazen serpent in order to be healed, our Lord refers, Joh 3:14-15: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The brazen serpent was certainly no type of Jesus Christ; but from our Lord’s words we may learn,
1. That as the serpent was lifted up on the pole or ensign, so Jesus Christ was lifted up on the cross.
2. That as the Israelites were to look at the brazen serpent, so sinners must look to Christ for salvation.
3. That as God provided no other remedy than this looking for the wounded Israelites, so he has provided no other way of salvation than faith in the blood of his Son.
4. That as he who looked at the brazen serpent was cured and did live, so he that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall not perish, but have eternal life.
5. That as neither the serpent, nor looking at it, but the invisible power of GOD healed the people, so neither the cross of Christ, nor his merely being crucified, but the pardon he has bought by his blood, communicated by the powerful energy of his Spirit, saves the souls of men.
May not all these things be plainly seen in the circumstances of this transaction, without making the serpent a type of Jesus Christ, (the most exceptionable that could possibly be chosen,) and running the parallel, as some have done, through ten or a dozen particulars?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He was delivered from death, and cured of his disease.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And Moses made a serpent of brass,…. Which was the most proper metal to make it of, that it might resemble the fiery serpents, whether of a golden or scarlet colour: and Diodorus Siculus d speaks of some of the colour of brass, whose bite was immediately followed with death, and by which, if anyone was struck, he was seized with terrible pains, and a bloody sweat flowed all over him; and this was chosen also, because being burnished and bright, could be seen at a great distance, and with this metal Moses might be furnished from Punon, the next station to this, where they now were, Zalmonah, as appears from Nu 33:42 a place famous for brass mines, and which Jerom e says, in his time, was a little village, from whence brass metal was dug, by such that were condemned to the mines:
and put it upon a pole; as he was directed:
and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived: which was very marvellous, and the more so, if what physicians say is true, as Kimchi relates f, that if a man bitten by a serpent looks upon a piece of brass he dies immediately: the lifting up of this serpent on a pole for such a purpose was a figure of the lifting up of Christ, either upon the cross, or in the ministry of the word, that whosoever looks unto him by faith may have healing, [See comments on Joh 3:14],where this type or figure is largely explained: the station the Israelites were now at, when this image was made, is called Zalmonah, which signifies an image, shadow, or resemblance, as the brazen serpent was; from Mount Hor, where they were last, to this place, according to Bunting g, were twenty eight miles: this serpent did not remain in the place where it was set, but was taken with them, and continued until the days of Hezekiah, 2Ki 18:4.
d Bibliothec. l. 17. p. 560. e De locis Heb. fol. 91. G. f Sepher Sherash. rad. g Travels of the Patriarchs, &c. 83.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(9) And Moses made a serpent of brass.The old serpent was the cause of death, temporal and spiritual. Christ Jesus, in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3), was made sin for us (2Co. 5:21), and thus fulfilled, as He Himself explained to Nicodemus, the type of the brazen serpent (Joh. 3:14-15). The meaning of this type, or sign of salvation, is explained in the Book of Wisdom in these words, He that turned himself toward it was not saved by the thing that he saw, but by Thee, that art the Saviour of all (Num. 16:7). This serpent was preserved by the Israelites, and taken into Canaan, and was ultimately destroyed by King Hezekiah, after it had become an object of idolatrous worship (2Ki. 18:4).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. Serpent of brass The material was not prescribed in the command. Brass was selected, doubtless, because its lustre would enable it to be seen at a great distance. Possibly the fiery serpents may have had a coppery hue, like the copperhead of America. The size of this piece of brass was probably many times that of the fiery serpent, in order to be seen from afar. That the Israelites had abundance of metals is seen from the amount contributed to the tabernacle.
If a serpent had bitten any man This would imply that the antidote was only for those bitten previous to the lifting up of the brazen serpent; but a critical examination shows that the merciful Healer provides also for those who may be bitten subsequently. Nordh. ( Gram., 1090, 2) translates the passage thus: “And it came to pass when a serpent bit a man, and he looked at the serpent of brass, that he survived.” See Furst’s Lexicon. “It ( ) is but seldom a sign of the actual past.” This justifies the conclusion that the fiery serpents were not taken away, but that they continued to annoy the people and to kill such as despised the remedy, while the virus was harmless in the veins of him who immediately looked toward the antidote. How long the brazen serpent continued to be “lifted up” in the camp we know not; but it is probable that it continued during the remainder of the march to Canaan, and that it had a conspicuous position near the tabernacle after it was set up in the Land of Promise. We find it existing eight hundred and twenty-five years afterward (2Ki 18:4) as an object of idolatrous worship, when the reformer, Hezekiah, because of this, broke it in pieces. He stigmatized it as “Nehushtan,” a mere piece of brass. Rationalistic writers, both Jewish and Christian, have endeavoured to divest the cure by looking at the brazen serpent of its miraculous character by the theory that Moses, by his knowledge of astrology, devised this as a talisman or charm to operate on the imaginations of the people. The more pious Jews regard the cures as the result of a lively faith in Jehovah. See Targum of Onkelos. Evangelical writers ascribe the healing power of this serpent-form to its great Antitype, lifted up in crucifixion for the salvation of all believers.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Num 21:9. Moses made a serpent of brass That it might resemble a serpent of a flaming colour; and, being splendid, might be seen far and near. Naturalists observe, that the sight of the image of the creature by which men were bitten, tended of itself rather to increase disease, and fill them with greater anguish, by disturbing their imagination: if so, it was the more proper to convince the Israelites that their cure came from God alone, who made that, of which the aspect was naturally hurtful, to be the means of their recovery. Those who would see more upon this subject may consult Scheuchner on the place. Mr. Saurin observes, that the Jews have a remarkable saying, “that as the bitings of the fiery serpents were cured by the Israelites looking up to the brazen serpent; so will be the bitings of the old serpent inflicted on Adam and his posterity at the time of the Messiah.” If this saying (says he) were known in the days of our Saviour, it is probable that he alluded to it, when he said to Nicodemus, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. Joh 3:14.
It is plain, that our Lord compares faith to the look which the Israelites, being wounded, by the bitings of the fiery serpents, cast upon that of brass. He also compares the healings which attended their look to the fruits of faith, and the lifting up of the serpent to his exaltation upon the cross. This allusion is so much the more happy, as, according to the observation of some critics, the Syriac word which our Lord used signifies both to lift up and to crucify. He used this word in the same sense, when he said, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me; Joh 12:32. The prophets made the same allusions too, perhaps, when, speaking of the evangelical ages, they said, at that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel; Isa 17:7 and, in another place, they introduce the Saviour saying, look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else. Isa 45:22. See Saurin, Diss. 63.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“A serpent of brass.” Num 21:9
Physical objects may be made the medium of spiritual suggestion. The true use of material objects is to find out their spiritual suggestions. The sown seed, the growing corn, the fields white unto the harvest, are all instances which may be turned to spiritual advantage. So may all growth, all life, all beauty, all force. It is very significant that the word “serpent” should be identified in the Bible with its sublimest remedial activities. It would seem as if God intended even in this way to humble and punish the tempter who ruined our first parents. It was the “serpent” that was more subtle than any beast of the field. In the last book of the New Testament the enemy is referred to as “the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” Images and relics are to be strictly limited in their use. Nothing is to stand between the soul and God but the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Hezekiah “brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made.” Why did Hezekiah take this course? Because the children of Israel had become image-worshippers, and had a superstitious veneration for an institution which had served its purpose and was no longer needed. The only eternal institution is the work of Jesus Christ himself. It is nothing less than wickedness to go back to the symbol when the reality is before us. Men are not at liberty to judge themselves by the commandments when they can adopt the more penetrating criticism of the Beatitudes. The whole meaning of the serpent of brass was realised in the uplifting of the Son of man. The proof of this is found in Joh 3:14 , Joh 3:15 . The uplifting is an action as remarkable as is the name of the serpent. Jesus Christ referred to it repeatedly, thus: “Even so must the Son of man be lifted up”; again: When ye have lifted up the Son of man.” The lifting up is an act equivalent to manifestation; the lifting up is highly symbolic; it means separation, elevation, exposure to the whole world, welcome to all mankind. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
The Symbolical Serpent
Num 21:9
Has not the serpent bitten every man? We come, thus, by our questioning, into larger meanings and ultimate truths. These alphabetic incidents did not terminate in themselves. An alphabet was never created for its own use as a mere set of unrelated and incoherent symbols. He who makes an alphabet makes, in purpose, a library in the language which that alphabet represents. The early people in the Bible lived the alphabet life, the symbolic and significant life; and in after-ages we come to consolidation and consequence, to profound and eternal meanings. The serpent of brass was but a poor invention if it began and ended in itself. By the very necessity of the case it means more than the mere letter expresses. So we return to the opening question, Is not every man bitten by the serpent? If this were a question to be determined by argument, into what high and fruitless words and controversies we might enter, coming out of them with nothing but sense of tumult and weariness! Every man knows that he has been bitten through and through. The appeal is not to merely grammatical expression and critical definition of letters and words: the solemn appeal is to consciousness not the consciousness of any one particular moment it may be, as when the life fritters itself away in some vain frivolity, or is engaged in admiration of some vain symbol or object, or when it is excited by transient controversy, or momentary challenge and appeal of any kind, relating to earthly experience, which can be terminated by temporal adjustments and compensations; consciousness is not set up within that small excitement. Take the consciousness right through the whole life, and, though we may avoid theological expressions, religious terms, and turn our back upon Biblical symbolism and allusion, yet right away at the core is a throb, a spasm, an accusation, a sense of restlessness which, perhaps, the theologian with the Bible in his hand can better turn into words than can any other man. Your life is not a plain surface, without wound or bruise or mark of cruel tooth; it is a torn thing, crumpled up by great forces, punctured by sharp bodkins, made sore by many a keen stroke. Things will turn themselves upside down. Prayer does not go up like untroubled incense to the sun. Things do get out of place; words will come wrongly both as to time and as to setting; temper will rise; bad blood is fast made in the moral system. What is this? Having heard what men say about it in explanation, we have come to the conclusion that no terms so correctly express our consciousness, so thoroughly satisfy our own sense of reality, so completely fill our capacity of imagination, as the old words which are found in Holy Scripture. We change them or modify them, or perform upon them some magical rearrangement; but they are best let alone. Their very setting seems to be of God; they are not loose jewels to be set haphazard as any man’s fancy may dictate: each is set in its right place by the finger of God. We know this serpent; we have been associated with its history. If we cannot see it, we can see the tooth-mark it has left. We know that we are wounded men. As the poet, then, has well said, “To know one’s self diseased is half the cure.”
There are, as a matter of fact, incurable physical diseases. The doctor looks, and says, They are beyond my reach. He looks at all his resources, and, shaking his head significantly, he says, I have no weapon with which I can fight successfully this assailant; there is no hope; but a few days may come and go, and then the last deep sleep. Why, then, may there not be incurable spiritual diseases that is to say, incurable by any remedy known to men? We have no hesitation in confessing that some physical diseases are incurable, why should we falter over the case of spiritual disease and trouble? Why hesitate to say We are lost men; there is no health in us; we are dead men before God; the law we cannot answer; conscience we cannot appease; our own small imagination has no poem or dream by which it can cover up this sense of guilt and absolute unworthiness? Why not put our hand upon our mouth and our mouth in the dust, and say, Unclean; unprofitable; unworthy; undone! That word must be spoken if any better language is ever to be set in the soul as fit speech of a new liberty and a recovered and assured sonship. What word can better express the sense of loss and helplessness than the Bible word “unclean,” or “unpardonable,” or “unworthy,” or “undone”? The soul says That is the right word; that sacred term is no human invention; it touches with exquisite precision the very meaning I have been toiling to express. So long as we imagine that we can cure ourselves, we shall not look in the right direction for healing. We are not ashamed to go to others for bodily healing, why this reluctance or hesitation to go out of ourselves and beyond ourselves for spiritual healing? No sick man apologises for going to the physician. Do we not sometimes lament the obstinacy of men saying, They will not take advice; they will persist in their own course; they become the victims of their own ignorance; if they would only call in adequate advice they might be well presently? What is the full meaning of such expressions? We speak that we do not know in all the fulness of its possible meaning and force. That is the complaint of the motherly universe over her child that will try to cure himself: she says, Poor sufferer! why turn in upon thyself, and waste thy supposed cleverness in attempting to do impossibilities? the secret of restoration is not in thee: in thee alone is the writing and condemnation of death; life is otherwhere; look for it; I do not say, Go for it, for that might imply impossible effort; but thou canst at least move an eye-lid in the direction of the remedy, thou canst at least turn a languid eye in the direction to which I point; the meaning of that turned eye will be that thou hast given up all thought of saving thyself or finding health where there is none; look! look! look up and be saved! It is a gentle force; it falls into the harmony of our daily experience and action in relation to other things; it has upon its side what controversial force there may be in the fact of harmony, rhythm, sound rational analogy. The reason is not suspended: it is elevated, it is touched with a higher glory, it is summoned to a nobler attestation of its supreme and divine function. “Come now, and let us reason together,” saith the Lord. Who is not pleased to say that he has in time of illness taken the very highest advice which the latest science can supply? Is he not somewhat proud of so explaining his position? He has not called in some inferior doctor; or availed himself of cheap advice; he has not turned in the direction of inexperienced wisdom; but has gone with plentiful gold in his hand and knocked at the highest medical prophet’s door, and the prophet has condescended to come down to him and treat him with marked distinction. He decorates his dreary tale by such small and vain allusions as these. Even here we may find some point of suggestion, rather than of analogy. Who calls us? Anyhow, the call is from God, even in the poetry and idealism of the case. This is no infant deity that asks to play with the soul’s malady, and by spiritual vivisection learn something of which he is now ignorant Even in the poetry, in the dream, it is the Eternal God that calls for the wounded men. We are not handed over to inexperience, to mere sympathy or pity on the part of fellow-sufferers; it is the Physician of the universe that asks us to be healed.
So, if in the terms of Scripture we are humbled, crushed, set back with such contempt as holiness may feel for iniquity, yet, on the other side, it is God who calls us to be healed, it is the Eternal who stoops to us, it is the Mother of the universe that cries for the child-earth. If we cannot rise to theological awe, we are bound to respond to poetic harmony and completeness. We go out of ourselves for consolation why hesitate to go out of ourselves for the greater blessing salvation? We are thankful when some friend who knows the secret of the low tone and the gentle speech, quiet as dew, sweet as honey, calls upon us in the dark time, when the heavy load is crushing the whole strength; we say we will never forget the call; we treasure the words that were spoken; memory says, I will never forget the sweet prayer, the noble supplication; the holy pleading; it was a visit as of an angel, full-robed, charged with special messages. If we can speak so about consolation in the time of sorrow, bereavement, pain, loss, if we say we owe the solace to another why this pitiful reluctance to say salvation is of God? It is no human devising: it is the thought of the Eternal. There is no salvation in the self-destroyed man: his help cometh from the hills of heaven and from the throne of eternity. Are we not dignified yea, even glorified by the fact that our salvation is of God and not of man? If we would see what human nature really is, as to its dignity and grandeur and possible destiny, we must go to the very Book which humbles it with the severest reproaches. God did not send his Son to recover other than his own image: when the Son came, he spoke the native language of the race he came to redeem: he is not ashamed to be called our Brother. The very fact, therefore, that we are not saved by man but by God reveals the value of the nature which God stooped to redeem.
The great thought of all is, that the cure, as well as the disease, in the case of ancient Israel, came from God. The God who punished was the God who saved. Find an instance in the whole Scripture in which healing or preservation is connected with the name of the enemy of man, Satan that old serpent, the devil. This is a marvellous thing. If all the Bible writers had lived in the same age and held common consultation as to the structure and form of their book, they might have made a mechanical arrangement which would have secured an artificial symmetry and unity; but they were separated by centuries; they were sundered, in some instances, by thousands of years; in many instances they did not know what would be written or what was written in its completeness; yet, when all the fragments are brought together, in no case do I find that the devil is ever credited with having attempted really to do man substantial good, to heal him, to help him. The help which the Bible dwells upon, whatever it may be, is uniformly and consistently connected with the divine name. It is God who is mighty to save. He that cometh up from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah, arrayed in his apparel, is red with his own precious blood.
Suppose we treat all this in the meantime symbolically, poetically, is there not still a grand moral suggestion arising out of this perfect harmony and absolute unity? and do not the lines so interlace and co-work in all their outgoing as to suggest a noble argument? God only can wound. Injury of a certain kind is said to be inflicted by the devil; but even that is not the permissible tone. In the profoundest sense of the term all punishment for wrong-doing is from God; all trials of our spiritual quality are from God. Can there be evil in the city and the Lord not have done it? In the letter, that is a mystery; in its innermost meanings and most comprehensive bearings and issues it is a fact attested by religious consciousness. The enemy himself is but a permitted disgrace in the universe. Do not let us magnify the devil into co-partnery as to the division of the universe. He the starry leader of the seven is but allowed to live the ages will tell us why. The Lord reigneth: wherefore comfort one another with these words.
What is the New Testament use of the incident recorded in the Book of Numbers? Jesus Christ took up this text, and from it preached himself. “Beginning at Moses” he could not begin earlier as to the letter he preached himself. Hear his words: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Jesus Christ having quoted the passage, we need not hesitate to receive it. If Jesus Christ had passed it by, we might also have turned away from the sacred symbol or have classed it with some obsolete mythologies. Where Jesus Christ rested, we too may sit down. Jesus sat upon the well would God we could have sat around his feet and looked up into his heaven-shining eyes! Where he lingers, I would gladly stay. He lingers here: he saw in that serpent a worse foe of the human race than ever bit the flesh of man; he saw in that pole, or standard, a cross; he saw in that uplifted serpent of brass the symbol of himself; and said he, “I, if I be lifted up,… will draw all men unto me.” We believe in Christ; we are not ashamed to utter his name; we do not adopt all that has been said about it by ignorance, inexperience, and perverted ingenuity; but putting aside all these things, we go straight to him and say each for himself, “My Lord, and my God!” We come to the uplifted Man, we come to the crucified Christ, not to talk, but to look, to pray without words, to begin to speak and to be choked by our own speech. Look unto him and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. Lord, to whom can we look, but unto thee? We have gone to many, and have only received riddles for replies, enigmas in exchange for mysteries, and contradiction where we begged for peace. Wilt thou take us in? We have come to thee last: we have knocked at every door like cringing beggars, and only because we could not find satisfaction we have come to thee. If we could have eaten bread elsewhere, we would have stayed; but when we asked for bread, they gave us a stone. Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us! If last of all God sent his Son, last of all the sinner accepts the Son, coming without price in his hand, without defence in his heart, and casts himself in living, loving, hopeful faith upon the Son of God. It may be delusion it maybe some horrid nightmare; but in the meantime nothing gives such rest, such peace, such sense of union with God. In this faith we live, and in death will test the mystery,
Prayer
Almighty God we cannot live without thee. Thy smile is heaven. To know that thou art looking upon us is a judgment. We can answer it with a good heart, if so be thy Christ be in us, our Saviour and our Priest. We can bear the light when he is with us yea, a light above the brightness of the sun. He himself is light, and in him is no darkness at all; and if he is in us, and we are in him, behold, in thy light we see light, and we love the light because of its revealing power. Give us more light. We die if we have not light enough. Thou hast made us to live in light and not in darkness. We wither away, as if struck with ice and chilled through and through, if thy light be not in us, a brightness and a warmth, a continual blessing, an eternal hope. Once we loved darkness rather than light, but now thou hast brought us out of darkness into a marvellous light. All light is marvellous, but thy light most marvellous of all. It shows the reality of things; it finds its way into the soul; it reveals and discloses what is excluded from every other ministry. We, therefore, ask for light, more light, and more still, until the night be driven away and life become one eternal morning. Thou dost comfort us with light; yea, a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. We seem to be akin to that sun of thine: we claim one another; the heart answers the gospel of light, and we would go. forth and see all the wizardry which thy sun works in the grandness of the field and the beauty of the garden. But thou dost work still more wondrously within us. Thou dost make all things new; old age is driven away; death is taken up, as by a giant’s hand, and abolished by infinite strength: death is swallowed up in victory, and life has become immortality. These are wonderful things to say to a man. Thou hast said them: they are all written in thy book. We do not understand them nor would we: for what we understand we come at last to contemn. We would live in wonder in the continual appeal to our noblest imagination; we would live in the certainty that we do not know all things, and never can know them, and that to know God is to be God. Therefore do we stand afar off, without shoe upon our foot or staff in our hand, with bowed head, listening if in the warm wind we may hear at least some one tone that will tell us of wider places, infinite liberties, glorious heavens, days without night. Thou art visiting us constantly with visitations that are meant to be instructive. Thou dost take away the old traveller, so that in the morning we miss the pilgrim who has companied with us these many days only the staff is left behind, the traveller is gone forward. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. Comfort those who arc feeling the chill of death, the encroachment of the graveyard upon their household hearth; speak comfortingly to them, and show them that light is above, that home is on high, that here we have no continuing city, that permanence is beyond the clouds. The Lord make up for losses of this kind in so far as they can be made up, for great vacancies in the heart the eyes looking with expectancy and beholding nothing, the ear listening for accustomed appeals, and no more appeal addressed to the hearer. We need the Lord’s comfort: some warm word, some gracious speech, yea, some great trumpet sound, that shall swallow up the mean noises of earth, and rule into harmony and order and sacred and ennobling thought all tumult and fear, all apprehension and pain. Save us from folly! We are prone to it; we like it: we roll it under our tongue as a sweet morsel. We sometimes feel as if we were the children of fools, and were born to be fools greater still. We think the earth is all: the blue sky is an exclusion not an inclusion; to our mean thought, the lights that glitter in it are but points of amber not flaming gates falling back upon radiant heavens; we gather up things with both hands, and hide them and cover them up so that nobody else may see them, and this we call prosperity; yea, we put our money into bags with holes in them; we sow plentiful seed, and others reap the harvest; we build our tower that is to reach unto heaven, and whilst we are putting on the topstone, builder and building are thrown to the ground. The little child dies, and the old man, business withers, health gives way, the house totters without our being able to find out why; we live in uncertainty; we are walking upon the edge of a precipice; we know not what will happen to-morrow so near a time as that. God pity us! for God made us and send us the messages we need. Revive our hope; establish our confidence; bind us to the infinite meaning of the Cross; there we see with the heart that thy Cross is greater than our sin, that thy grace is infinitely more than our guilt. The Cross is the place of vision. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
serpent = Hebrew. nachash, a shining thing of brass, as in Deu 8:15. 2Ki 18:4, &c.: so that nachash is synonymous with saraph, and both words are thus used of serpents.
he lived. Compare Joh 3:14, Joh 3:15.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
serpent
(See Scofield “Gen 3:14”). The serpent is a symbol of sin judged; brass speaks of the divine judgment, as in the brazen altar See Scofield “Exo 27:1”, note (2) and self-judgment, as in the laver of brass. The brazen serpent is a type of Christ “made sin for us”; Joh 3:14; Joh 3:15; 2Co 5:21 in bearing our judgment. Historically, the moment is indicated in the cry: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Mat 27:46.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
A serpent of: 2Ki 18:4, Joh 3:14, Joh 3:15, Joh 12:32, Rom 8:3, 2Co 5:21
when he: Isa 45:22, Zec 12:10, Joh 1:29, Heb 12:2, 1Jo 3:8
he lived: Joh 6:40, Rom 1:17, Rom 5:20, Rom 5:21
Reciprocal: Psa 107:20 – healed Luk 6:19 – sought Joh 5:46 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
BANE AND ANTIDOTE
If a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
Num 21:9
Faint and weary, and dispirited, the old murmuring breaks out against God and against Moses. And this time God strikes. The punishment took a form, perhaps even more terrible than pestilence or death. As the column toiled along the weary way, out from bush and crevasse, gliding through the grass came the deadly foe, and fastened upon leg and hand. A small thing the bite seemed at first, but as the fiery poison coursed through the veins, then the deadly work began. The stalwart man, who was marching at a comrades side, suddenly falls out and is left writhing and choking in torture. And when the camp is pitched, into the tent they come gliding and biting, till a great and terrible cry arises from the sin-stricken, penitent camp. Then, when the chastisement has done its work, God stays His hand. And the serpent of brass, made in the likeness of the living scourge, but transfixed to the pole, is lifted up in the midst of the camp. And as the next days sun strikes upon its burnished coils, which burn like fire, it is recognised as a fit symbol of the fiery serpents, whose venomed bite sent the blood coursing like molten fire through the veins. And when any bitten one looked to the serpent of brass in simple faith, behold, he did not die but lived! So the plague was stayed.
I. The poison of sin.From the day of the first sin in the garden, the idea of evil has been associated with the serpent, and a fitting picture it is. How stealthily it creeps upon us, how unexpectedly it seizes, how little difference it seems to makewe go on our walk as usual, but a fiery poison has entered our lives to work our ruin. Such is sin in the soulhaving a very small external wound, it may be, but poisoning the whole being. And it creeps in everywhere. It is lying in wait for us by day at our work and play; it follows us at night. We may lace the flaps of the tent tight, we may peg down the curtains round and round securely, but it glides under and stings us even in our sleep. And if any man say he hath not been bitten, he deceiveth himself, and the truth is not in him.
II. The remedy.One has bent over sinful humanity and sucked the poison from the wound. And He shall save His people from their sins. To deliver us from this deadly poison He willingly gave up His life, and our only hope is to look to Him in simple faith. A look is enough. This may seem a very trifling thing to bring such a reward. But before the bitten Israelites looked to the serpent, how much had taken place! Instead of rebellion, sin, and disobedience, there was chastened penitence, we have sinned, and willingness to obey; and restored trust in God. It seems an easy thing to say, Only believe in Christ, but before the soul can cast one believing look at the Crucified, there must first have been the breaking down of the hard heart and the readiness to trust in God. It is a little and easy thing in itself; but it indicates a great and difficult change of mind. When a disobedient child is ready to confess his disobedience, the change in his attitude is shown quite as clearly by the simple coming and confessing as if he were to promise to perform some hard task, or undergo some severe penalty. And if any man among the bitten Israelites had not undergone the change of mind, if he still cherished his rebellious spirit towards God, that man could not look to Gods symbol of forgiving love, and he died in his misery. Strange as it may seem, there may have been such men. For there are such to-day who will not look to the Saviour, who will cling to their sins, who do not wish to be freed from the bondage and misery of sin if it mean service under Christ.
Illustration
(1) Herbert Spencer in his latest book warns strongly against what he calls the rebarbarisation of the world. And Lord Tennyson lends an illustration of what is meant by his lines that make the hunting of ones fellow men the lordliest life on earth. Christianity believes in education, but it knows that educated devilry and civilised savagery are the very worst kind.
The cross is the only cure for the serpents bite. Men must repent and believe and be washed of their sins. Jesus is the only one who can promise, But as many as receive Him, to them gives He power to become the sons of God.
(2) A golf caddie in putting his hand into some undergrowth in search of the ball, had it stung by an adder. His companion, a member of a Boys Brigade Ambulance Class, at once tied something tight round the wrist to keep the poison from spreading, and sucked the wound clean, thus, in all probability, saving his comrades life. A young doctor in a London hospital, bent over the throat of a boy suffering from virulent diphtheria, and knowing well the risk, calmly inserted the tube and sucked out the poisoned virus. He had brilliant prospects before him; but he took the risk. The boy recovered; the brave doctor took the fell disease, sickened, and in a week was dead. He gave his life to save the boy.
(3) The snatch of poetry in Num 21:14-15 is variously translated. Our English version, What he did on the Red Sea, etc., agrees with an old Jewish rendering. Some translate it, Vaheb (Jehovah takes) in storm, and the brooks of Arnon, and the valley of the brooks, which turns to the dwelling of Ar and leans upon the border of Moab. Others make it, (We took) Waheb in Suphah and the Arnon water-courses, and the slope of the water-courses that inclineth toward the dwelling of Ar, etc. The term Vaheb or Waheb might thus be the name of some fortress or strong position of the Amorites.