The second commandment appeared to forbid the likeness of any living thing. The golden calf had been destroj'ed as an abomination. Now the colossal serpent (the narrative implies that it was visible from all parts of the encampment), made, we may conjecture, by the hands of Bezaleel or Aholiab, was exposed to their gaze, and they were told to look to it as gifted with a super- natural power. What reason was there for the differ- ence? In part, of course, the answer may be that the second commandment forbade, not all symbolic forms as sucli. but those that men made for themselves to wor- ship ; but the question still remains, Why was this form chosen V
It is hardly enough to say, with Jewish commenta- tors, that any outward means might have been chosen, like the lump of figs in Hezekiaii's sickness, the salt which healed the bitter waters, and that the brazen ser- pent made the miracle j'et more miraculous, inasmuch as the glare of burnished brass, the gaze upon the ser- pent form, were, of all things, most likely to be fatal to those who had been bitten (Gem. Bab. Yoma ; Aben- Ezra and others, in Buxtorf, l/ist. jEn. Serp. c. 5). The fact is doubtful, the reason inadequate. Another view, verging almost on the ludicrous, has been maintained by some Jewish writers. The serpent was set uj) in ferroreni, as a man who has chastised his son hangs up the rod against the wall as a warning (_Otho, Lexic. Rabbin, s. v. " Serpens").
It is hardly enough again to say, with most Christian interpreters, that it was intended to be a type of Christ. Some meaning it must have had for those to whom it was actually presented; and we have no grounds for assuming, even in Moses himself, still less in the multi- tude of Israelites slowly rising out of sensuality, unbe- lief, rebellion, a knowledge of the far-off mystery of re- demption. If the words of our Lord in John iii, 14, 15, point to the fullilment of the type, there must yet have been another meaning for the symbol. Taking its part
in the education of the Israelites, it must have had its starting-point in the associations previously connected with it. Two views, very different from each other, have been held as to the nature of those associations. On the one side it has been maintained that, either from its simply physical effects, or from the mysterious history of the temptation in Gen. iii, the serpent was the representative of evil. To present the serpent-form as deprived of its power to hurt, impaled as the trophy of a conqueror, was to assert that evil, physical and spiritual, had been overcome, and thus help to strength- en the weak faith of the Israelites in a victory over both. The serpent, on this view, expressed the same idea as the dragon in the popular representations of the archangel Michael and St. George (Ewald, Geschichte, ii, 228), To some writers, as to Ewald, this has com- mended itself as the simplest and most obvious view. It has been adopted by some orthodox divines who have been unable to convince themselves that the same form could ever really have been at once a type of Sa- tan and of Christ (Jackson, Humiliation of the Son of Got/, ch. xxxi ; Patrick, Comnj. ad loc; Espagnajus, Bur- mann, V'itringa, in Deyling, Observatt. Sac. ii, 15). Oth- ers, again, have started from a different ground. They raise the question whether Gen, iii was then written, or, if written, known to the great body of the Israelites. They look to Egypt as the starting-point for all the thoughts which the serpent could suggest, and they find there that it was worshipped as an agathodcemon, the symbol of health and life (comp. Sekpent, and, in addition to the authorities there referred to, Wilkinson, Anc. E(/yptians,\\,\M\ iv, 396; v, 64, 238; Kurtz, //zs^ of the Old Covenant [Eng. transl.], iii, 348; Witsius, ^'Efii/ptiaca, in Ugolino, i, 852), This, for them, ex- plains the mj'stery. It was as the known emblem of a power to heal that it served as the sign and sacrament on which the faith of the people might fasten and sus- tain itself.
Contrasted as these views appear, they have, it is believed, a point of contact. The idea primarily con- nected with the serpent in the history of the fall, as throughout the proverbial language of Scripture, is that of wisdom (Gen. iii, 1 ; Matt, x, 16; 2 Cor, xi, 3), Wis- dom, apart from obedience to a divine order, alloying it- self to man's lower nature, passes into cunning. Man's nature is envenomed and degraded by it. But wisdom, the self-same power of understanding, yielding to the di- vine law, is the source of all healing and restoring influ- ences, and the serpent-form thus becomes a symbol of de- liverance and health. The Israelites were taught that it would be such to them in proportion as they ceased to be sensual and rebellions. There were facts in the life of Moses himself which must have connected them- selves with this twofold symbolism. When he was to be taught that the divine wisdom could work with any instruments, his rod became a serpent (Exod, iv, 1-5). (Comp. Cyril. Alex. Schol. 15; Glaphyra in Exod. ii. The explanation given by Cyril is, as might be ex- pected, more mystical than that in the text. The rod transformed into a serpent represents the Divine Word taking on himself the likeness of sinful flesh.) When he and Aaron were called to their great conflict with the perverted wisdom of Egypt, the many serpents of the magicians were overcome iiy the one serpent of the future high-priest. The conqueror and the conquered were alike in outward form (Exod, vii, 10-12).