Bible Study - Numbers 21:4-9

One of our readings this coming Sunday, Numbers 21:4-9, is the story of another great rebellion by God’s people, on their way to the promised land, resulting in a plague of fiery poisonous snakes biting many of them and bringing many to sickness and death. Moses prayed for God’s mercy, and God had Moses make a bronze serpent on a pole. If the people looked upon the serpent, trusting the Word of the Lord, they would not die, even if they were bitten. This was prophetic of our Lord Jesus, lifted up on the cross, to rescue us. As we are brought to look upon Him and keep trusting in him, by God’s grace, in this Lenten season, our sins are forgiven and we have the gift of eternal life, too. Read more about this in the Preparing for Worship comments on the Old Testament lesson.

Have you ever noticed, though, that this mercy of God did not seem to be good enough? The bronze serpent was saved, and over time became a relic, an object of worship, to which some of God’s people made offerings, as if it were a god. Read 1 Kings 18:1-5. Hezekiah became king of Judah at age 25 and reigned from 715-686 BC. He was a king largely faithful to God. Before him, some kings and others had brought in worship of false gods. He destroyed many objects of false worship and places where they were worshiped in Judah. Amazingly, the bronze serpent was still around and was being used as an object of worship, too.

That was the opposite of what God commanded in His explanation of the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20:3-6. People were to worship the one true God alone, and not make any other objects that people would worship. (Obviously, God had commanded that the bronze snake be made, in Numbers 21, for the purpose described there. There were cherubim (a kind of angel) on the Ark of the Covenant, too, and cherubim in Solomon’s temple, as well. None of these objects were to be worshiped as if they were gods or had godlike power, though.)  Hezekiah, therefore, broke the bronze serpent into pieces and stopped this kind of worship of something other than God Himself.

At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther and others condemned the collection of supposed relics of saints and other people, in churches, as if they had special, godlike power and could help people. Luther did not condemn artwork itself, as some do, as long as it did not become an object of worship and only pointed people to the Lord Himself. It is only the one True Triune God we worship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, though we are grateful to hear of the bronze serpent, which served its purpose in pointing us eventually to Christ and the cross on which He died for us.