Commentary - Numbers 21:4-9

Bird's-eye view

This brief narrative in Numbers 21 is a potent and compact picture of the gospel. It follows a predictable and lamentable pattern for Israel in the wilderness: deliverance, grumbling, judgment, repentance, and a further, more profound deliverance. The people, discouraged by a detour, fall into the sin of ingratitude, speaking against both God and His appointed leader, Moses. Their sin is not just complaining; it is a rejection of God's gracious provision. God's judgment is startlingly appropriate, He sends "fiery serpents" among them. The wages of sin is death, and the people begin to die from the venom.

But as is always the case, the story does not end with judgment. The affliction brings the people to their senses, and they confess their sin. Moses intercedes, and God provides a remedy that is as strange as it is gracious. He does not simply remove the serpents. Instead, He instructs Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole. The cure for the snakebite is to look at the snake. The way to be healed from the venom is to look at the source of the affliction, now judged and impaled. This, as the Lord Jesus Himself tells us in the Gospel of John, is a direct and glorious type of His crucifixion. He who knew no sin would be made sin for us, lifted up on a pole, so that all who look to Him in faith might not perish but have eternal life.

Outline

Context In Numbers

This event occurs near the end of Israel's forty years of wilderness wandering. The generation that refused to enter the Promised Land has died off, and the new generation is on the cusp of entering Canaan. They have recently secured a victory over the Canaanite king of Arad (Num 21:1-3). However, their progress is halted by the refusal of Edom to grant them passage through their land. This forces them on a long, arduous detour around Edom, sparking the episode of rebellion recorded here. This incident is one of the final tests for Israel before they cross the Jordan. It serves as a stark reminder of the persistent sinfulness of man and the persistent, covenant-keeping grace of God. The entire book of Numbers is a story of God's faithfulness in the face of Israel's faithlessness, and this account is a pinnacle illustration of that central theme.

Key Issues

Verse by Verse Commentary

4 Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient on the way.

The journey of the Christian life is not always a straight line. Here, Israel is forced into a detour. Edom, their brother nation descended from Esau, refuses them passage. This is a political and logistical problem, but it quickly becomes a spiritual one. The text says the people became "impatient," or as other translations have it, their soul was "shortened." This is a visceral description of that feeling we all know, when our patience wears thin and our spirit shrinks. They were discouraged by the way. It is one thing to march toward a goal, it is another to march away from it. This is a test of faith. Will they trust God's providential ordering of their steps, even when the path is long and seems to be going in the wrong direction? Their failure here is a warning to us all.

5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.”

Impatience quickly curdles into open rebellion. Notice the targets of their complaint: God and Moses. You cannot separate the two. To rebel against God's appointed authority is to rebel against God Himself. Their speech is filled with faithless hyperbole. "To die in the wilderness?" God had sustained them for forty years. "No food and no water?" This was a bald-faced lie. God was providing them with daily bread from heaven and water from the rock. Their real issue is not a lack of provision, but a lack of contentment. "We loathe this miserable food." The manna, this "light bread," which the psalmist calls the "bread of angels," they now despise. This is the height of ingratitude. They are sick of grace. They have come to detest the daily miracle that sustains their lives. When men get tired of grace, they are in a very dangerous place.

6 So Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.

Sin has consequences. God is not a doting grandfather who simply overlooks insolence. He is a holy Father who disciplines His children. The judgment here is poetically just. The people spoke with venomous tongues against God, so God sends venomous snakes to answer them. The word for "fiery" here is saraph, related to the word for the seraphim, the burning ones who surround God's throne. These were likely not literally on fire, but their venom caused an intense, fiery burning sensation. This was a terrifying and deadly plague. The wilderness that had been a place of God's provision now becomes a place of His judgment. The very ground beneath their feet turns against them. This is what sin does, it corrupts and poisons everything.

7 Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you; pray to Yahweh, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses prayed for the people.

The sting of death has a way of clarifying the mind. Faced with the deadly consequences of their sin, the people repent. Their confession is specific and accurate. "We have sinned." They identify the nature of their sin, "we have spoken against Yahweh and against you." And they turn to the very man they had just been reviling, Moses, and ask him to intercede for them. This is how true repentance works. It owns the sin, it turns for help, and it seeks mediation. And Moses, as a type of Christ, does not hesitate. He doesn't say, "I told you so." He immediately turns and prays for the people. His love for this rebellious flock is steadfast.

8 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard; and it will be that everyone who is bitten and looks at it, will live.”

Here is the heart of the passage, and it is a stunning display of the wisdom of God, which so often looks like foolishness to men. God's solution is not what the people asked for. They asked for the serpents to be removed. God does not remove the serpents. The threat remains. The danger is still present. Instead, He provides a remedy. Moses is to make an image of the very thing that is killing them, a fiery serpent, and lift it high on a pole. The command is simple, almost absurdly so. If you have been bitten, if the poison is coursing through your veins, you must look at this bronze serpent. And if you look, you will live. This is not a magical incantation. It is a test of faith. It requires them to look away from themselves, away from their wound, away from their own efforts to save themselves, and to look to the provision that God has made. It requires them to believe God's promise, as strange as it sounds.

9 And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a standard; and it happened, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

Moses obeys, and the word of God proves true. The text is beautifully simple. If a serpent bit any man, when he looked, he lived. The cure was immediate and effective for all who availed themselves of it. The Lord Jesus tells Nicodemus that this is a picture of His own work. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14). The world is snake-bit by sin. The poison of the ancient serpent is in us all, and the wage is death. God, in His mercy, did not simply remove sin from the world. He sent His Son, and on the cross, He "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us" (2 Cor 5:21). On that pole, on that cross, we see our sin, our curse, our death, judged and impaled. What is our snakebite? It is accusation, guilt, the sting of the law. When we look to Christ on the cross, we are looking at the crucifixion of all accusation. The remedy for our sin is to look at our sin placed upon another. It is to look away from ourselves and to look, by faith, to the crucified and risen Lord. And all who look, live.

Application

The application of this text is as direct as the command to look. We are all snake-bitten. We have all spoken against God, if not with our mouths, then with our lives. We have all despised His provision and chafed under His authority. The poison of sin is in our veins, and we are dying. The world offers many remedies, try harder, be a better person, distract yourself. But these are like trying to outrun a rattlesnake bite, a fool's errand. God's remedy is singular and, to the world, foolish.

He tells us to look to His Son, lifted up on a cross. He tells us to see our sin, our rebellion, our death, hanging there on Him. He tells us that our only hope is to look away from our own righteousness and to fix our eyes on the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. The gospel is not a call to moral reformation first, but a call to look and live. You cannot fix the snakebite yourself. You must look to the one who became the serpent for you. You must look to the one who absorbed all the venom of God's wrath in your place. This is not complicated, but it requires humility. It requires you to admit that you are snake-bit and helpless. But if you will look, if you will believe, you will live. That is the promise of God, and it is as true for us today as it was for Israel in the wilderness.