The Snake in the Desert

Numbers 21: 4 – 9 (NIV): They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

What is this about? Really? The God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt has now sent poisonous snakes among them to bite them? And didn't God strictly tell them not to make an idol of an animal? (The Second Commandment). Now he instructs Moses to put an image of a snake on a pole, and if anyone is snake-bitten, he simply has to look at the image and he will live.

This story would make no sense at all except that fourteen-hundred years later Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). Now we are beginning to understand. Moses wasn't breaking the Second Commandment by creating this bronze snake – the people were putting their trust in God when they looked at it, not worshiping the fake snake.

This story is a Messianic prophecy. The Old Testament has 350 of them. This story is about people being punished because they did not trust God, and God providing a way for them to prove that they did, once again, trust him.

The Bible's message to us is that we are all snake-bitten, spiritually. We all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. None of us is righteous. We have all failed to trust God and are in need of someone to save us. Isn't it interesting that God instructed Moses to put an image of the very thing that was killing the people on the pole? Scholars say the pole undoubtedly had a crossbar and looked just like a cross. When Jesus was lifted up on the cross, he became sin for us, then nailed it to the cross. He became sin, then punished that sin. All we have to do is look to him – believe in him – and our sin is no longer held against us.