Reference: Serpent, Brazen
Fausets
Nu 21:4-9; Joh 3:14-15. The apocryphal Wisdom (Wis 16:5-12) says "they were troubled for a small season that they might be admonished having a sign of salvation ... for he that turned himself toward it was not saved by the thing that he saw, but by Thee that art the Saviour of all." The brazen serpent typified the Son of man, in that
(1) the brazen serpent had the form without the venom of the deadly serpent; just as Jesus was "in the likeness of sinful flesh" yet "without sin" (Ro 8:3), "made sin for us" though He "knew no sin" (2Co 5:21); the brazen serpent seemed the most unlikely means of curing the serpents' bites; so the condemned One seemed most unlikely to save the condemned.
(2) The brazen serpent lifted up on the pole so as to be visible with its bright brass (which also is typical: Re 1:15) to the remotest Israelite answers to Jesus "evidently set forth before the eyes, crucified" (Ga 3:1), so that "all the ends of the earth" by "looking unto" Him may "be saved" (Isa 45:22), "lifted up from the earth," and so "drawing all men unto Him" (Joh 12:32-34).
(3) The cure of the body by looking naturally typifies the cure of the soul by looking spiritually; faith is the eye of the soul turned to the Saviour (Heb 12:2), a look from however far off saves (Heb 7:25; Eph 2:17; Ac 2:39); the bitten Israelite, however distant, by a look was healed. The serpent form, impaled as the trophy of the conqueror, implies evil, temporal and spiritual, overcome. Wisdom (of which the serpent is the symbol) obeying God is the source of healing; as wisdom severed from God envenoms and degrades man. Moses' serpent rod was the instrument of power overcoming the magicians' serpents (Ex 7:10-12). (See NEHUSHTAN on the worship of the relic; so the cross of Christ itself was perverted into an idol.)
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Then Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and they did as the Lord had said: and Aaron put his rod down on the earth before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a snake. Then Pharaoh sent for the wise men and the wonder-workers, and they, the wonder-workers of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts. read more. For every one of them put down his rod on the earth, and they became snakes: but Aaron's rod made a meal of their rods.
Then they went on from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, going round the land of Edom: and the spirit of the people was overcome with weariness on the way. And crying out against God and against Moses, they said, Why have you taken us out of Egypt to come to our death in the waste land? For there is no bread and no water, and this poor bread is disgusting to us. read more. Then the Lord sent poison-snakes among the people; and their bites were a cause of death to numbers of the people of Israel. Then the people came to Moses and said, We have done wrong in crying out against the Lord and against you: make prayer to the Lord to take away the snakes from us. So Moses made prayer for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, Make an image of a snake and put it on a rod, and anyone who has been wounded by the snakes, looking on it will be made well. So Moses made a snake of brass and put it on a rod; and anyone who had a snakebite, after looking on the snake of brass, was made well.
Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have salvation, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other.
As the snake was lifted up by Moses in the waste land, even so it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up: So that whoever has faith may have in him eternal life.
And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will make all men come to me. (This he said, pointing to the sort of death he would have.) read more. Then the people in answer said to him, The law says that the Christ will have life without end: how say you then that it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?
For the word of God is for you and for your children and for all those who are far off, even all those who may be marked out by the Lord our God.
For what the law was not able to do because it was feeble through the flesh, God, sending his Son in the image of the evil flesh, and as an offering for sin, gave his decision against sin in the flesh:
For him who had no knowledge of sin God made to be sin for us; so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
O foolish Galatians, by what strange powers have you been tricked, to whom it was made clear that Jesus Christ was put to death on the cross?
And he came preaching peace to you who were far off, and to those who were near;
So that he is fully able to be the saviour of all who come to God through him, because he is ever living to make prayer to God for them.
Having our eyes fixed on Jesus, the guide and end of our faith, who went through the pains of the cross, not caring for the shame, because of the joy which was before him, and who has now taken his place at the right hand of God's seat of power.
And his feet like polished brass, as if it had been burned in a fire; and his voice was as the sound of great waters.
Hastings
Nu 21:4-9 relates that Moses was commanded by God to make a serpent of brass (or rather, of bronze) and to set it upon a standard (RV), that those who had been bitten by the serpents might look on it and be healed. This was in harmony with a wide-spread belief that the image of a hurtful thing drives the evil away. In the absence of a direct statement we cannot say whether it was Jahweh who was worshipped under the form of the bronze serpent of 2Ki 18:4
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Then they went on from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, going round the land of Edom: and the spirit of the people was overcome with weariness on the way. And crying out against God and against Moses, they said, Why have you taken us out of Egypt to come to our death in the waste land? For there is no bread and no water, and this poor bread is disgusting to us. read more. Then the Lord sent poison-snakes among the people; and their bites were a cause of death to numbers of the people of Israel. Then the people came to Moses and said, We have done wrong in crying out against the Lord and against you: make prayer to the Lord to take away the snakes from us. So Moses made prayer for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, Make an image of a snake and put it on a rod, and anyone who has been wounded by the snakes, looking on it will be made well. So Moses made a snake of brass and put it on a rod; and anyone who had a snakebite, after looking on the snake of brass, was made well.
Then Adonijah put to death sheep and oxen and fat beasts by the stone of Zoheleth, by En-rogel; and he sent for all his brothers, the king's sons, and all the men of Judah, the king's servants, to come to him:
He had the high places taken away, and the stone pillars broken to bits, and the Asherah cut down; and the brass snake which Moses had made was crushed to powder at his order, because in those days the children of Israel had offerings burned before it, and he gave it the name Nehushtan.
And I went out by night, through the doorway of the valley, and past the dragon's water-spring as far as the place where waste material was put, viewing the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down, and the doorways which had been burned with fire.
As the snake was lifted up by Moses in the waste land, even so it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up:
Watsons
SERPENT, BRAZEN. This was a figure of a serpent, called above the seraph, which Moses caused to be put on the top of a pole, Nu 21:9, that all those bitten by the serpent, who should look upon this image, might be healed. Our Saviour, in the Gospel of St. Joh 3:14, declares, that "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up," alluding to his own death, which, through faith, was to give life to the world. The brazen serpent was preserved among the Israelites down to the time of Hezekiah; who, being informed that the people paid a superstitious worship to it, had it broken in pieces, and by way of contempt gave it the name of Nehushtan, that is to say, a brazen bauble or trifle, 2Ki 18:4. See TYPE.
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So Moses made a snake of brass and put it on a rod; and anyone who had a snakebite, after looking on the snake of brass, was made well.
He had the high places taken away, and the stone pillars broken to bits, and the Asherah cut down; and the brass snake which Moses had made was crushed to powder at his order, because in those days the children of Israel had offerings burned before it, and he gave it the name Nehushtan.
As the snake was lifted up by Moses in the waste land, even so it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up: