NOTES for Num 21:4-9

The story of the bronze serpent is one of the most mysterious in the Pentateuch. The principle "like is healed by like" works here in a completely mysterious way. Biblical scholars have put forward many ingenious explanations of this event, but none of them can be considered exhaustive. Yet God's intention in this case is fairly transparent. Every case of grumbling and dissatisfaction mentioned in the Pentateuch is ultimately explained by the fact that God and His power are not obvious to the overwhelming majority of the people. What is obvious to them is something else: the endless waterless wilderness, hunger threatening them and their flocks, and the aggressive nomads inhabiting the oases of Sinai and Transjordan. And those "fiery serpents" which, according to the biblical account, bit the Hebrews in the wilderness and killed them were one of these dangers, obvious and terrible in their inevitability.

The miracles of God, however, were much less noticeable in the wilderness. When it was necessary, the sea parted. When it was required, water gushed from what seemed to be an absolutely dry rock. When the people were dying of thirst, the bitter water of a desert stream became clean and pleasant. And every time, if one wished, everything could be explained by natural causes, a lucky combination of circumstances, or something else belonging to the sphere of "this world." God is unobtrusive; He does not want to "prove" His existence to a person by miracles. Against this background the story of the bronze serpent may seem like an exception to the rule. But it only seems that way at first glance.

In fact, God is only trying to convey to His people a simple truth, though one learned with great difficulty: the appearance and the essence of a given phenomenon are different things. Behind the same appearance there may be things opposite in essence, as opposite as life and death. A serpent in itself can neither kill nor give life. Everything depends on whose power stands behind the serpent. If the power of God stands behind it, the serpent will cease to be deadly and will become life-giving.

So it is with every other miracle: a phenomenon becomes miraculous not when it violates all the laws of the universe (such violation was never God's goal in itself), but when the power of God is hidden behind it and revealed through it. And not because God is stronger than everyone and can subject any other power to Himself, but because such a phenomenon becomes part of God's plan and part of His great world. And therefore, in perspective, it can also become part of His Kingdom.