The Bronze Serpent
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. 2 Israel vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said, “If you will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.” 3 Yahweh listened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. The name of the place was called Hormah. 4 They traveled from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. The soul of the people was very discouraged because of the journey. 5 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 bread, there is no water, and our soul loathes this disgusting food!” 6 Yahweh sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died. 7 The people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you. Pray to Yahweh, that he take away the serpents from us.” Moses prayed for the people. 8 Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a venomous snake, and set it on a pole. It shall happen that everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 Moses made a serpent of bronze, and set it on the pole. If a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the serpent of bronze, he lived. 10 The children of Israel traveled, and encamped in Oboth. 11 They traveled from Oboth, and encamped at Iyeabarim, in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sunrise. 12 From there they traveled, and encamped in the valley of Zered. 13 From there they traveled, and encamped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that comes out of the border of the Amorites; for the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. 14 Therefore it is said in The Book of the Wars of Yahweh, “Vaheb in Suphah, the valleys of the Arnon, 15 the slope of the valleys that incline toward the dwelling of Ar, leans on the border of Moab.” 16 From there they traveled to Beer; that is the well of which Yahweh said to Moses, “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.” 17 Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, well! Sing to it, 18 the well, which the princes dug, which the nobles of the people dug, with the scepter, and with their poles.” From the wilderness they traveled to Mattanah; 19 and from Mattanah to Nahaliel; and from Nahaliel to Bamoth; 20 and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the field of Moab, to the top of Pisgah, which looks down on the desert.
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.
Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a venomous snake, and set it on a pole. It shall happen that everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”
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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