Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 343 · December 9
Brass on a Pole
“And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”
What troubles you more in this story: that God sent the snakes, or that the cure was a snake on a pole? Two different readers get stuck in those two places, and the chapter does not answer either of them the way they might want.
Start with the first reader. "And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died." Nothing softens that. It came after the people complained about the food God gave them: "our soul loatheth this light bread." That sounds small until you remember who had been feeding them every morning in the desert. Then notice what they asked for. They begged Moses, "pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." Moses prayed, and God did not take the snakes away. He told Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole for the bitten to look at, and Moses made it of brass. So people were still being bitten, and staying alive meant looking to what God had provided. If you have asked God to remove something and He has given you a way to live through it instead, this is the oldest picture of that in the Bible.
The second reader is uneasy about a snake made of metal, and Scripture shows that worry had reason. Centuries later, King Hezekiah "brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan." That name means something like "a piece of brass." What God once used to save them had become something they worshipped, and a good king had to smash it.
Yet Jesus took up this very picture: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." The next words say why: whoever believes in Him has eternal life. The power was never in the brass. It was in God's promise to everyone who looked. Jesus was lifted up on the cross, and whoever looks to Him in faith will live.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 343 is The Keeper Who Never Sleeps (Psalm 121:3).