Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Bronze Serpent
Numbers 21:1-20
1 The Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the South, heard that Israel came by the way of Atharim. He fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. · WEB
A remedy is provided that does nothing except require a dying man to look, and the thing killing them is what he looks at.
The chapter opens with a victory at Arad Numbers 21:1–3 and then turns immediately to the last recorded complaint of the wilderness.
The cause is given honestly: the soul of the people was very discouraged because of the journey Numbers 21:4. They are walking the long way round Edom, and they are tired.
What they say is the old complaint with one new insult. There is no bread, there is no water, and our soul loathes this disgusting food Numbers 21:5 — which contradicts itself in a single sentence. There is no bread, and the bread is revolting.
Serpents come, and people die, and the confession that follows is the most complete in the book: we have sinned, because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you Numbers 21:7. They name the offense and both parties to it, and ask Moses to pray.
What they ask for is that the snakes be taken away. That is not what they get.
Make a venomous snake, and set it on a pole. It shall happen that everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live Numbers 21:8.
The serpents remain. What is provided is not an end to the danger but a remedy inside it, and the remedy is deliberately useless as a treatment. It does not draw the poison or close the wound. A dying man turns his head, and that is the whole of it.
The object is the thing that is killing them, made of bronze and lifted where everyone can see it. Judgment and mercy are the same shape.
And nothing about the looking can be done well. A strong man and a weak one, a wise man and a fool, look identically. There is no technique, no degree, and nothing to bring — which is precisely why the New Testament reaches for it: as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up John 3:14.
The chapter then lightens. At a well the people sing — spring up, well! Sing to it Numbers 21:17 — and it is the only song of the wilderness generation recorded, and it is about water arriving.
A nation that has spent forty years complaining about drought sings when the well is dug.
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