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Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, because the people of ancient Israel continued to rebel God’s leadership and His appointed leaders (see the Korah rebellion). The grumblers were bitten by the snakes had to acquiesce and obey Moses’ advise and look at it if they wanted to survive the snake bite. They had to comply with his leadership command or they would die.
This rebellion, rather than resulting in a golden age of peace, resulted in more death, until the people finally were willing to trust in and accept God’s leadership.
Some people get excited about the Kingdom of Death because they see in it the ability to exercise power and dominance. They see it as a tool to destroy, to take things down, to blow things up, both literally and figuratively. They seek power to ignite chaos, because out of the ashes of chaos, revolution is sparked and after the revolution, comes reformation.
So today, it’s very much the same sort of battle between the kingdom of death and the kingdom of life as it has always been from the garden, which amazingly, had a snake in it. And we’re talking about a snake here today.
Yosef (Joseph) and Daniel served as prime ministers to “snakes” in the sense that the kings they served were not believers in HaShem. Joseph’s Pharaoh trusted him so much that he gave over the entire government to him. Daniel also served tyrants Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, who history has shown were real snakes, yet Daniel served them with distinction.
Spiritual antivenin
George Washington is apocryphally quoted as saying government is fire, but you can say that it’s a fiery serpent that needs to be kept under strict control. This is why we have to be aware of those who covet that power and who we entrust to wield it.
We see in Chukat that God will protect us from snakes — the ideas, powers and people who slither their way into our lives and cause us to doubt and turn against the ways that lead to an abundant life. If He holds them back, they are restrained, but if He allows the snakes to run loose, they will wreak havoc.
The Kingdom of Death tells us that we have no sin, that we don’t have any thing to regret. The Kingdom of Death tells us that that we don’t have to repent of our errant ways.
There are parallels between the ceremony of the red heifer sacrifice with Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement). One significant paralell is that both ceremonies bring those who contacted death (sins, transgressions and iniquities) to life.
Hebrews 9 also connects both the Red Heifer and Yom Kippur to Yeshua the messiah.
The red heifer was to be “unblemished,” which some say means that it should be completely red, down to its hooves. They also said that the heifer should not have two hairs next to each other that aren’t red.
| Red heifer | Yom haKippurim |
| Seven sprinklings of blood (Num. 19:4) | Seven sprinklings of blood (Lev. 16:14–19; cf. Lev. 4:1–21; 14:7, 16) |
| Ashes from the red heifer cleanses from contact with the dead. | Blood of the goat for the LORD covers sins, transgressions and iniquities. |
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’”
Leviticus 17:11 NASB
The seven sprinklings of the blood of the red heifer and the seven sprinkling of blood on Yom Kippur shows us that these offerings both cleanse from contact with death as well as contact with sins, transgression and iniquities.
Yeshua said “Do this in remembrance of me” regarding the Passover (Luke 22:15–20; 1Cor. 11:23–26; cf. 1Cor. 5:6–8). What does this tell us? Just as we are to remember the Exodus, which was a foretaste of redemption, how much more should we remember the redemption accomplished by Yeshua’s death and resurrection? Yeshua’s death and resurrection offers us a way to have our own exodus from death and sin. Every Passover, we are also looking forward to our great exile from the world into the world to come.
Numbers 20: Rock of My salvation? Edom sees red
Israel got their “daily bread” in the desert, yet they died because of their lack of gratitude and lack of trust (John 6:30–58).
People will say that God set up Adam and Eve to fail by putting them in the garden with the tree of knowledge.
Scoffers also say that God set up ancient Israel for failure when He took them out of Egypt into the wilderness with His harsh tests of faith, into barren areas to camps without water. Human beings need water far more than they need food. Yet God blesses them and us with both.
During Yeshua’s Sukkot speech (John 7:37–39), He approached the water pouring ceremony and made a serious declaration. He called all those in the Temple to drink of Him. He also used water as a teachable moment with the Samaritan woman at the well, because He told her the same thing He told the Sukkot celebrants: We need literal water to drink to survive but we need spiritual water even more. People who drink water die some day but those who drink of Him have eternal life.
We live in Northern California, where we are facing a profound drought. We depend on heavy winter rains to prepare us for the summer of no rain, but those rains didn’t come and now we are facing rationing of this precious life source.
The Sukkot water-pouring ceremony is a prayer for rain, for water, not only the literal water they needed for their physical substance but also the water of God’s word.
We often lust for new sources of bread and water rather than appreciating the bread and water God has already given us. We think our lives will be more exciting and more fulfilling if we get a new job, a new car, a new wife. We are thirsty, thirsty and more thirsty looking for something new rather than being grateful for the provision God already gives us.
Numbers 21: Snakes! Why does it have to be snakes?
Moses and Aaron just lost their beloved sister, and the people, rather than cutting Moses and Aaron some slack as they were in deep mourning, the children of Israel were pointing fingers and complaining. We never lose out on opportunities to complain.
We are living in a pandemic of envy and covetousness in America and it has been with us for a long time.
It has taken root in many different ways. One gaining a lot of strength today is in socialism, which looks good on paper. Socialism promises to provide more food, more wealth and more freedom, but instead, it always creates more starvation, more poverty and more oppression.
No plan survives contact with the enemy, to paraphrase the 19th century Prussian commander Helmuth van Moltke.1“No plan survives contact with the enemy,” Boot Camp & Military Fitness Institute, accessed June 26, 2021. Or as Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”2Mike Berardino, “Mike Tyson explains one of his most famous quotes,” Sun Sentinel, Nov. 9, 2012.
The people of Plymouth also had a plan to “have everything in common,” just as the believers did just after Shavuot experienced (Acts 2:43–45; 4:32). But the Pilgrims ran into the reality of “if you don’t work, you don’t eat” (2Thess. 3:11–12) after more than half of them starved to death because very few people wanted to work to take care of those who refused to work.
Those in the camp of Israel bitten by the “fiery serpents” were healed because the people had to look beyond themselves to something else. The “first man” parlayed with the serpent and lost, the “second man” battled with the serpent and prevailed.
There’s an interesting Hebrew word play with the word for serpent and the word for copper. The bronze serpent was from נְּחשֶׁת n’chosheth (Strong’s lexicon No. H5178). It’s related to word for serpent, נָחָשׁ nachash (H5175), which comes from נָחַשׁ nachash (H 5172), to hiss or to incant a spell.
The revered Jewish commentator Shimson Raphael Hirsh noted that the Hebrew form for “sent” in Num. 21:6 (יְשַׁלַּ֨ח yeshallach, piel stem of שָׁלַח shalach) is often translated “released.”3“Punished … by snakes?” Aleph Beta In other words, the fiery serpents may not have been sent into the camp, but simply let loose.
The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament makes a similar point:
“The third meaning [of the verb שָׁלַח] ‘let loose, free’ is also found mostly in the Piel. It is used in the mild sense of formally allowing a guest to leave (Gen 18:16; 24:54) or in the stronger sense of releasing captives such as Israel in Egypt (Ex 4:21), the exiles in Babylon (Isa 45:13), and the prisoners in the pit (Zech 9:11). In Ps 81:12 God gives rebellious Israel up to go their own ways and to suffer the consequences.”
Austel, Hermann J. Harris, R. Laird, Gleason L. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, eds. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Chicago: Moody Press, 1980.
As Hirsh notes, there’s a parallel to this story in Deuteronomy 8 regarding the second generation who are preparing to enter the Promised Land. They were hungry and given manna to fill their bellies but they were also given the Word, to fill their minds with of knowledge of God’s ways.
They were thirsty and given water, but they were also given the Spirit of God.
They were naked but given clothing and shoes that never wore out during their sojourn in the wilderness. They were also given the way of eternal life.
The desert was full of scorpions and snakes and they were held back by His seraphim. The people were in tents, and there were a lot of entry points for scorpions and snakes but God held them back. However, when the people became insolent and rebellious, He let those scorpions and snakes loose into the camp to teach the children of Israel a lesson.
“You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”
Deut. 8:2–3 NASB
Snakes do what snakes do but Yeshua was sent into the world to save us from the Kingdom of the snake, from the kingdom of death. When we are bitten by the snakes of this world, God gave us the One who can save us from the world’s venom.
The serpent on the pole was the way of salvation. They had to look on the snake to heal them of the venom coursing in their bodies after they were bitten. The one who created the snakes can save us from their venom.
Yeshua tells Nicodemus the same thing, only the snake on the pole is Himself.
“ ‘No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.’ ”
John 3:13-17 NASB
The Kingdom of Heaven builds us up and saves us. The Kingdom of Death tears us down and kills us.
Our immune system was given to us to kill invaders that are out to kill us and to bring our entire body down. A healthy immune system kills the contagion without killing its host.
The Kingdom of Death is very attractive. If it weren’t, it would not be a temptation. But the Kingdom of Death is also destructive. You have to ask yourself, “Where is this going? What is the ultimate end of this?”
Things that are earth-shattering, new and revolutionary are attractive.
Some scoff at the “slippery slope” argument, but it is based on what could be called the law of spiritual gravity4Thanks to Rabbi Daniel Lapin: Without an intervening force, people and their culture naturally degrade until they hit rock bottom.
The spiritual gravitational pull of the couch and an entertainment binge can overpower the pull of the list of things that must be done, if we don’t literally take a stand to be people of purpose.
Chaos is the natural progression of things without intervention. The only reason there is order in the universe is because God created it.
We don’t have to slide downhill, but if we don’t fight spiritual gravity, the slide downhill is the natural result. We don’t have to be caught in the downhill slide but it will happen if we ignore if or we are not aware of it.
God calls us to choose the way that is not the downhill slide. He calls us to build up the world, not allow others to tear it down or join in with the Kingdom of Death to destroy the world.
Summary: Tammy