9...SNAKES IN THE GRASS, THE REEDS, & ONE ON A POLE!

Let's follow that snake as it slithers away from Adam & Eve & God when He gives it a piece of His mind in GN 3. It's a great example of Biblical story-telling. This ‘snake motif’ also crops up elsewhere in Scripture. Here God is commenting on the fact that human beings do react to the presence of snakes near them. Spelling danger for both. The part the snake plays in the story of The Fall is also the story tellers’ response to feelings & questions human beings associate with snakes. Like, ‘Why are we afraid of snakes?’ or, ‘Why do snakes hurt us, or even kill us?’ The more possibilities in a story the richer & more fruitful that story can become for us. There's a lot more to our snake motif than meets the eye! So let’s take a look at some more connections.

Here in vv.14 & 15 we have what is often referred to as a 'glimmer of a Gospel’. A kind of prophecy in which the snake stands for the evil that will come upon the human race through failing, falling out with God, & also the fate that will befall the Son of God & Humanity, Jesus the Christ. The woman here starts out as Eve, but the motif extends to all women & their offspring, & then to represent Mary the Blessed who gives birth to Jesus. Jesus will be ‘struck on the heel’ by evil, represented by the snake, & dies. But in so doing He ‘bruises the head’ of the ‘snake’ of death in His resurrection.  

Jump to NUM 21: 4-9 & we come across a strange story of fiery (‘poisonous’ in some versions) snakes that threaten the Israelites as they make hard going of their continuing escape from Egypt. As they travel beside the Reed Sea (part of the Gulf of Aqaba, itself connected to the Red Sea) on their way to the Promised Land, the reedy nature of the terrain poses new hardships. It is infested by snakes! The Israelites are in fact travelling through an area anciently rich in copper deposits. Models of snakes made of copper or bronze have been dug up there. Put snakes & copper together & maybe Moses is copying what the locals do, making a snake of copper / bronze to ward off attacks from the real thing! In making the metal snake & setting it up on a pole for people to look up to Moses develops this from just a superstitious practice into a test of faith in YHWH. Emphasising the connection between human ills & God’s will for our healing. (If you ask, ‘Why does God tell Moses to make a copper snake in contradiction of the 2^nd Commandment He’s recently given him?’ that’s a good question. Whether we have a good answer is another matter!) A fascinating comment in 2K18:4 tells us the Israelites keep the snake, known as ‘Nehushtan’, until the reforming King Hezekiah orders its destruction hundreds of years later! 

Looking ahead, into the N.T. this time, we find the story of Moses & the fiery serpent burns deep in Jesus’ soul. We sometimes pass over JN 3: 14-15 in our haste to get to the much loved v.16. But to do this is to miss the vital connection Jesus Himself makes between the story of Moses & the snakes (NUM 21) & His own ‘being lifted up’ on the cross & the healing it will bring to those who ‘look up to Him’. Jesus Himself, the new Moses, also becomes a new 'snake' lifted up on the cross, for the healing (salvation) of those who look up to Him & believe! But that’s another story…. Next time: Where there’s Fire there’s Smoke