I would ask you to consider what happened in Exodus leading up to the stories in Numbers. Abraham’s decedents were in slavery in Egypt, told to make more bricks with less straw and they were beaten daily for not making their quota. They were under a cruel master with no freedom, yet like a woman, who wants to return to her abuser after years of violence and oppression, Israel wants to return to what is familiar to them.

They selectively remember the “good old days” back in Egypt. “We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” It is funny how quickly we forget the pain and bondage that comes from serving ourselves. God enters the picture, providing a bigger vision for their lives with promises and a future hope but they want to turn back to pursue comfort. How are we just like them? We are offered a land “flowing with milk and honey,” which represents an intimate relational oneness with God and we would rather go back to our creature comforts in Egypt.

And the people spoke against God and against Moses, Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water, and we loathe this light (contemptible, unsubstantial) manna.

(Numbers 21:5 AMPC+)

The people were not treating God with the respect He was due so God actually sent poisonous snakes and they bit the people; many people of Israel died. Then the people came to Moses and said “We have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.” Sometimes it requires tragedy to get people’s attention. So Moses prayed for the people and God was merciful to them and gave them a powerful symbolic antidote. God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that if a snake had bitten someone, when they looked at the bronze snake they would live.

This is the same symbol used today by the medical community. A snake on a pole. It was a sign that God would one day send an antidote for sin. Remember sin is what keeps us from representing God well and that which destroys healthy relationship with God and others.

Anyone who looked to (trusted) that antidote would be healed from their disease of sin. There is a bible verse, John 3:16, and no it is not about people with strange colored hair holding up signs at sporting events for TV cameras. In fact, most people miss the context of this verse because have never heard about the story of the snake on the pole. We see the medical symbol but fail to understand this story is not only about physical healing but it is also about spiritual healing.

Jesus said: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes [who cleaves to Him, trusts Him, and relies on Him] in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

(John 3:12-17 ESV)