Numbers 21:8
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.” (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:10-15
The Israelites are grumbling yet again. They had just defeated the Canaanites with God’s blessing. Before the blood of the Canaanites was even dry it seems the Israelites were discontent with their circumstances as they had expressed many times before. God didn’t have much patience with them this time and sends venomous snakes among them. The snakes “bit the people and many Israelites died” (Num 21:6).
At this point I feel like God is getting creative with how to punish the Israelites. He hasn’t tried snakes yet so maybe that will do the trick this time. Well it does at least temporarily. They repent and God is merciful. God instructs Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole. If anyone was bitten by a snake, they could look at the bronze snake and live.
We know the snake on the pole is a type of Christ because Jesus said so. We wouldn’t believe that the snake on a pole was a reference to Jesus except that Jesus wanted us to understand that is was about him. Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him” (John 3:14-15).
Interestingly enough, Jesus’ following sentence is the often recited John 3:16. I think both concepts are a hard teaching if you have never heard them before. We are to accept that simply believing in Jesus will give us eternal life just as looking at a snake would save the Israelites from death. Nicodemus had a hard time believing these concepts as Jesus explained them to him. In some ways it seems too simple. We should have to do more than that.
But it’s the way of God to be merciful. And it’s the way of God to provide us symbols to point to His work. Thousands of years ago the Israelites were disgruntled and deserving of death. So God sends venomous snakes to bite them. They pray for mercy so God has Moses mount a snake on a pole and that will save them. And all of that was to foreshadow Christ’s death on a cross to provide eternal life for all of humanity.
We serve a very creative God. We serve a merciful God. The takeaway for me is that when I read this event, if I was God I probably would have sent snakes to punish the Israelites. But I wouldn’t have so quickly given them mercy by providing the snake on the pole. But then when you put skin on it, I’m glad God was so quick to be merciful to them because it was really about me. I didn’t deserve Jesus being mounted on a pole. But he was quick to do it for me.
Christ in the Old Testament 
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