Numbers 21:8–9

Context

In Numbers 21, the Israelites set out from Mount Hor and travel around the land of Edom. Growing weary on the way, they speak against God and Moses, complaining that they have no food or water and that they loathe the manna as "this light bread." Fiery serpents then bite the people, and many of them die. The people come to Moses, confess their sin, and ask him to pray that the serpents be taken away. When Moses prays for the people (intercessory prayer), God gives the instruction recorded in this passage. Rather than removing the serpents, God provides a way of deliverance: whoever has been bitten, "when he looketh upon it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8).

Interpretation

• Reading in Jewish tradition: The Mishnah is said to explain that the serpent itself neither killed nor gave life; rather, the people were healed when they looked upward and directed their hearts to their Father in heaven. This reading places the source of deliverance not in the image but in God.
• Christian typological reading: In John 3:14–15, Jesus says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." Accordingly, most denominations read the bronze serpent as a type—a foreshadowing of a reality yet to come—of Jesus Christ lifted up on the cross. The fact that those who were bitten needed only to look in order to live is understood to illustrate salvation received through faith rather than by works.
• Historical and textual reading: Some scholars note that serpent images were used in the ancient Near East as symbols of healing or protection. They examine the passage against that background to see how Israel's faith received and transformed such a symbol.

Debates and Issues

• Relationship to the prohibition of images: The Ten Commandments forbid the making of images, yet in this passage God himself commands that an image be made. This point is frequently raised as a difficulty. Later, when the people burned incense to this bronze serpent, King Hezekiah called it "Nehushtan" and broke it in pieces (2 Kings 18:4). Many interpreters read this episode as a warning that even a means provided by God becomes an idol when it is made an object of worship.
• Healing and spiritual salvation: In Pentecostal and Full Gospel circles, the passage is sometimes read in connection with physical healing, that is, divine healing. Presbyterian and other Reformed traditions, by contrast, tend to emphasize that the point of the analogy in John 3 is salvation from sin.
• Translation: The "fiery serpent" of verse 8 renders the Hebrew saraph, the same word as the "seraphim" of Isaiah 6. The "serpent of brass" in verse 9 is nehash nehoshet, a phrase in which similar-sounding words for "serpent" and "bronze" are juxtaposed. The word translated "pole" can also denote a pole on which a banner or signal is raised.

In the Korean Church

Together with John 3:14–16, this passage is frequently treated in evangelistic sermons and in Holy Week preaching. It is also widely taught in Sunday school curricula under the title "the bronze serpent incident."

Related Passages

• John 3:14–15
• 2 Kings 18:4
• 1 Corinthians 10:9–11
• Isaiah 45:22