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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So Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and did so as Yahweh had commanded, - and Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants and it became a sea-serpent, Then called Pharaoh also for the wise men and for the magicians, - and they too, the sacred scribes of Egypt with their secret arts, did in like manner; read more. yea they cast down each man his staff, and they became sea-serpents, - but Aaron's staff swallowed up their staves.
Then brake they up from Mount Hor, by way of the Red Sea, to go round the land of Edom, - and the soul of the people became impatient because of the way, So then the people spake against God and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt, to die in the desert? for there is neither bread nor water, and our soul, doth loathe this contemptible bread! read more. And Yahweh sent among the people the poisonous serpents, and they bit the people, - and much people out of Israel died. Then tame the people of Israel unto Moses and said - We have sinned in that we spake against Yahweh and against thee, Pray thou unto Yahweh, that he may take from us the serpent. So Moses prayed for the people. Then said Yahweh unto Moses - Make thee a like serpent, and put it upon standard, - and it shall come to pass, that, any one who is bitten, as soon as he seeth it, shall live. So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon the standard, - and it came to pass - that if the serpent had bitten any man, as soon as he directed his look unto the serpent of bronze, he lived.
Turn unto me - and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, - For, I, am GOD, and there is none else.
And, just as, Moses, lifted up the serpent in the desert, so, must, the Son of Man, be lifted up, - That, whosoever believeth in him, may have life age-abiding.
And, I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw, all, unto myself. But, this, he was saying, signifying, by what manner of death, he was about to die. read more. The multitude, therefore, answered him - We, have heard, out of the law, that, the Christ, abideth evermore; How then dost, thou, say, - It behoveth the Son of Man to be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?
For, unto you, is the promise, and unto your children, - and unto all them who are afar off: as many soever as the Lord our God shall call unto him.
For, what was impossible by the law in that it was weak through the flesh, God, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh,
Him who knew not sin, in our behalf, he made to be, sin, that we might become God's righteousness in him.
O thoughtless Galatians! who hath bewitched you, - before whose very eyes, Jesus Christ, was openly set forth as a crucified one?
And, coming, he announced the glad-message - of peace, unto you, the far off, and peace, unto them that were nigh;
Whence he is able, even to be saving unto the very end, them who approach, through him, unto God; Since he evermore liveth to be interceding in their behalf.
Looking away unto our faith's Princely-leader and perfecter, Jesus, - who, in consideration of the joy lying before him, endured a cross, shame, despising! And, on the right hand of the throne of God, hath taken his seat.
And, his feet, like unto glowing copper, as if in a furnace refined, and, his voice, like a sound of many 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 brake they up from Mount Hor, by way of the Red Sea, to go round the land of Edom, - and the soul of the people became impatient because of the way, So then the people spake against God and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt, to die in the desert? for there is neither bread nor water, and our soul, doth loathe this contemptible bread! read more. And Yahweh sent among the people the poisonous serpents, and they bit the people, - and much people out of Israel died. Then tame the people of Israel unto Moses and said - We have sinned in that we spake against Yahweh and against thee, Pray thou unto Yahweh, that he may take from us the serpent. So Moses prayed for the people. Then said Yahweh unto Moses - Make thee a like serpent, and put it upon standard, - and it shall come to pass, that, any one who is bitten, as soon as he seeth it, shall live. So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon the standard, - and it came to pass - that if the serpent had bitten any man, as soon as he directed his look unto the serpent of bronze, he lived.
And Adonijah sacrificed sheep and oxen and heifers, near the stone of Zoheleth, which is beside En-rogel, - and invited all his brethren, sons of the king, and all the men of Judah, servants of the king;
He, removed the high places, and brake in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Sacred Stem, - and beat in pieces the serpent of bronze that, Moses, had made, because, until those days, had the sons of Israel been burning incense thereunto, so he called it Nehushtan.
So I went forth through the valley-gate by night, even unto the front of the snake-fountain, and into the dung-gate, - and I viewed the walls of Jerusalem, how, they, were broken down, and, the gates thereof, consumed with fire.
And, just as, Moses, lifted up the serpent in the desert, so, must, the Son of Man, 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.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon the standard, - and it came to pass - that if the serpent had bitten any man, as soon as he directed his look unto the serpent of bronze, he lived.
He, removed the high places, and brake in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Sacred Stem, - and beat in pieces the serpent of bronze that, Moses, had made, because, until those days, had the sons of Israel been burning incense thereunto, so he called it Nehushtan.
And, just as, Moses, lifted up the serpent in the desert, so, must, the Son of Man, be lifted up, -