Numbers 21:6-9 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.… Each time the people break into open sin there is something new in the treatment of them. Now God gives the fruition of their desires; they are surfeited with quails, and perish with the delicate morsels in their mouths (chapter 11.). Again he makes as if at one sudden, comprehensive blow he would sweep away the whole nation (Numbers 14:12). Yet again we read of the fifteen thousand who perished in different ways at the gainsaying of Korah (chapter 16). Then there is a complete change of treatment, and though the people murmured bitterly at Meribah, God is gracious to them, and visits Moses and Aaron, in wrath. Thus we advance to consider this present outbreak of sin, which is treated in a novel and very peculiar way, and one very profitable indeed to consider. I. DESTRUCTION THROUGH THE SERPENT. 1. It was through the serpent The Lord sent the fiery serpents. It is said that the district abounds in serpents which would be well described by the word fiery. But the Israelites were not allowed to consider the serpents as one of the perils of the district, into which they had fallen by some kind of chance. The Lord sent the serpents. Because the people ceased to trust in him, he delivered them to one of the dangers of the way (Deuteronomy 32:24; Job 26:13; Jeremiah 8:17; Amos 9:3). 2. The serpent rather than another mode of destruction was chosen. God in his wrath does not take the first weapon that comes to hand. If destruction, simply and only destruction, had been in view, doubtless there were other deadly creatures in the wilderness which might have served the purpose. But it is not enough for the people to die; the wag in which they die is also significant. Their thoughts are turned back to the very beginning and fountain of human troubles, to Eden before it was lost, and to the serpent who led our first parents into the ways of sin and death. As the serpent had to do with bringing sin into the world, so he is shown as having to do with the punishment of it. 3. The destruction is represented as being in many cases complete. "Much people of Israel died." Probably some of the few aged still surviving and doomed to die in the wilderness (Numbers 14:29) perished thus, confirmed in their rebellious spirit beyond remedy. Many of those bitten by a serpent toss awhile in pain, looking vaguely for a remedy, but, being ignorant of the original cause of their suffering, and not understanding that God has sent the serpent, they do not find the remedy, and then they die. 4. But in other cases the destruction is incomplete. The bite of the serpent, with its effects, sets before us that gnawing consciousness of misery which comes to so many, and which no art of man can conjure away. Why were some bitten and others not? He who can answer that question can answer another - why some can go through life light-hearted, never having the weight of a wasted life on their consciences, never made miserable by anything save physical pain or disappointed selfishness, and happy at once if the pain and disappointment cease; while others so soon have the serpent poisoning their consciousness and filling them with a deep sense of the failure, sadness, and misery of natural human life. There are some who seem to have triple armour against the serpent-bite. Of the bitten ones, many had been no worse in their unbelief than some who remained unbitten. It is part of the mystery of life that it is not the worst man who is obviously in all cases the suffering one. Then of those who were bitten, some went on to death, others sought if there might be some means of deliverance. Many would give themselves up to fatalism and despair. Many do so still. The question for the miserable in conscience is, "Will you go on allowing the misery of the serpent-bite to eat out all that is salvable in you, or wilt you do as some of Israel wisely and promptly did in their sore distress, namely, turn to God? Only he who sent the serpents can take the venom of their bite away. II. SALVATION THROUGH THE SERPENT. 1. The cry for salvation contained in verse 7. There is a show of repentance here, but we must not make too much of it. The people had talked in the same humble fashion before, saying they had sinned, yet soon showing that they did not understand what sin was (Numbers 14:40); though perhaps the expression in verse 5 should be particularly noted - " the people spake against God." Hitherto their wrath had been vented on the visible Moses and Aaron. It is something that even in their murmurings they at last seem distinctly to recognize God as having a hand in the disposition of their course. And so now they put in the confession, "We have spoken against the Lord." This may have had more to do with the peculiar way in which God treated them than at first appears. Whether their repentance is good for anything will be seen if they bring forth such fruit of repentance as they will presently have the opportunity of manifesting. Note also the connection of the healing with the request of the people. If they had gone on in silent endurance they might all in course of time have died. Their confession of sin told the truth, whether they felt all that truth or not. The serpent-bite was connected with their sin. Observe also their approach to God through a mediator, one whose services they had often proved, yet often slighted, in the past. They come to Moses for a greater service than they have yet any conception of. Thus we are encouraged to make Jesus the Mediator of spiritual salvation and blessing, by considering' how often, while upon earth, he was the Mediator of salvation and blessing in earthly things. The God who is infinite in power and unfailing in love, and who gave through Jesus the lesser blessings to same, waits also to give through Jesus the greater blessings to all. 2. As the destruction was through the serpent, so the salvation also. God sent the fiery serpents, and also the serpent of brass. There was nothing in it to save if Moses had made it as Aaron made the golden calf. It had not the efficacy of some natural balm. A bit of brass it was to begin with, and to a bit of brass in the course of ages it returned (2 Kings 18:4). So Jesus expressly tells us that in all his gradual approach to the cross he was carrying out his Father's will. All the process by which he was prepared to be lifted up was a process appointed by the Father. It was his meat and drink, that which really and truly sustained him, and entered as it were into his very existence, to do his Father's will and finish his work. When the brazen serpent was finished, fixed and lifted on the pole, this act found its antitype in that hour when Jesus said, "It is finished." All was finished then according to the pattern which God himself had indicated in the wilderness. 3. As destruction was through a serpent, salvation also was through a serpent. "He was made sin for us who knew no sin." Jesus was lifted on the cross amid the execration and contempt of well-nigh all Jerusalem. In its esteem he was worse than Barabbas. To judge by the way the people spoke and acted, the consummation of all villanies was gathered up in him. It was a great insult, and so considered in the first days of the gospel, to proclaim him of all persons as Saviour of men. And so when Moses lifted up the brazen serpent it may have been received indignantly by some. "Do you wish to mock us with the sight of our tormentor?" When we look at Jesus in his saving relation to us, we are brought closer than ever to our own sins, and indeed to the sin of the whole world. We see him, the sinless One, under a curse, as having died on the tree, manifestly under a curse, groaning forth as the Father's face passes into the shade, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Forsaken of God, the holy One, forsaken of unfaithful and terror-stricken servants, hated by the world, we may well say that the semblance of the serpent sets him forth. 4. And yet it was the semblance only. By the way men treated him, he appeared to be judged as a destroyer and deceiver, but we know that in himself he was harmless. 5. There is the prominence of the saving object. The serpent was set upon a pole. We may suppose that it was as central and prominent an object as the tabernacle itself. It was to be placed where all could see, for there were many in the camp, and the bitten ones were everywhere around. And what Moses did for the brazen serpent, God himself, in the marvelous arrangements of the gospel, has done for the crucified Jesus. It is not apostles, evangelists, theologians who have pushed forward the doctrine of the cross; Jesus himself put it in the forefront in that very discourse which contains the deepest things of God concerning our salvation (John 3:14). No one saw him rise from the dead; thousands saw him, or had the opportunity of seeing him, on the cross. We can no more keep the cross in obscurity than we can keep the sun from rising. 6. The pure element of faith is brought in. Contrast the mode of God's treatment here with that employed when Aaron with his smoking censer stood between the living and the dead (Numbers 16:47). On that occasion nothing was asked from the people. Aaron with his censer was the means of sparing even the unconscious. The mercy then was the mercy of sparing; now through the serpent it is the mercy of saving. The serpent was of no use to those who did not look. A man may long be spared in unbelief, but in unbelief he cannot possibly be saved. It is a great advance from sparing to saving. Thus the faith required was put in sharp contrast with past unbelief, which had been so sadly conspicuous and ruinous, gaining its last triumph a little while before in the fall of Moses and Aaron (Numbers 20:12). The people were shut up to pure faith. If once in their great pain and peril they began to doubt how a brazen image of a serpent should save, then they were lost. If there had been anything in the image itself to save, there would have been no room for faith to work. If one serpent-bitten person had been healed without looking, that would have proved faith no necessity. But only those who looked were healed; all who looked were healed; and those who refused to look perished. Thus Jesus early began inviting a needy world to look to him with a spirit full of faith and expectation, and the more he seemed to a critical world incapable and presumptuous, the more he asked for faith. "After that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Corinthians 1:21). 7. The salvation depends on the disposition of the person to be saved. Man fell with his eyes open and in spite of a solemn commandment and warning. And every man must be saved with his eyes open, turning himself intelligently., wholly, and gratefully towards the Saviour. There is everything to help the stoner if he will only turn. Some there might be in Israel who seemed too far gone even to turn their eyes, but doubtless God recognized the genuine turning of the heart. Though the eyes of sense beheld not the serpent, the eyes of the heart beheld, and' this was enough for healing. It was very helpful to be assured that there was one mode of healing, and only one, for only one was needed. It is only while we are cleaving to our sins that we find distraction and perplexity. There was distraction, anxiety, and fear in abundance as long as the Israelite lived in momentary terror of the fatal bite; but with the lifted serpent there came not only healing, but composure. God in sending his Son has not distracted us by a complication of possible modes of salvation. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. |
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