The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 295

while others so soon have the serpent poisoning their consciousness and filling them with a deep sense of the failure, sadness, and misery of natural human life. There are some who seem to have triple armour against the serpent-bite. Of the bitten ones, many had been no worse in their unbelief than 11ome who remained unbitten. It is part of th~ mystery of life that it is not the worst man who is obviously in all cases the euffenng one. Then of those who were bitten, some went on to deatl,,, others sought if 0,ere might be some means of deliverance. Many would give them- ~el,es up to f!tahsm .and despair. Man:)" do so sti!l. The question for the miserable in consc1ence 1s, "Will you go on allowing the misery of the serpent-bite to eat out all that is salvable in you, or will you do as some of Israel wisely and promptly did in their sore distress, namely, turn to God? Only he who sent the serpents can take tbe venom of their bite away. II. SALVATION TRBOUGB THl!: SERPENT. 1. The cry ft>r sal,vatim,, contained in trer. 7. There is a show of repentance here, but we mmt wt make too muck of it. The people had talked in the same humble fashion before, saying they had sinned, yet soon showing that they did n:ot understand what sin was (eh. xiv. 40); though perhaps the expression in ver. 5 should be particularly noted-" the people spake against God." Hitherto their wrath had been vented on the visible Moses and Aaron. It is somethiDg that even in their murmurings they at last seem distinctly to recog• nise God as hatlng e. hand in the disposition of their course. And so now they put in the confession," We have spoken against the Lord." This may have had more to do with the peculiar way in which God treo.ted them than at first appears. Wheth~r their repentance is good for anything will be seen if they bring forth such fruit of repentance as they will presently have the opportunity of manifesting. Note also the CO'f/,n«tUIII, of tke keali11{1 witk the request of the people. If they had gone on in silent endurance they might all in course of time have died. Their confession of sin told the truth, whl,lther they felt all that truth or not. The serpent-bite was connected with their si,11,. Observe also iheir approach to God tlir01J,flh a mediator, one whose services they had often proved, yet often slighted, in the past. They come to Moses for a greater service than they have yet any conception of. Thus we are encotIIaged to make JesllB the Mediator of spiritual salvation and blessing, by con- sidering how often, while upon earth, he was the Mediator of salvation and blessing in earthly things. The God who is infinite in power and unfailing in love, and who gave through Jesus the le88er blessings to some, waits also tp give through Jesus the greater blessings to a/.l. 2. As the destruction was through the serpent, so the salvation also. God sent the fiery serpents, and also the serpent of brass. There was nothing in it to save if Moses had made it as Aaron made the golden calf. It had not the efficacy of some natural balm. .A bit of brass it was to beg-in with, and to a bit of brass in the course of ages it returned (2 Kings ::x:viii. 4). So Jesus expressly tells us that in all his gradual approach to the cross he wae carrying out bis Father's will. All the process by which he was p to be lifted up was a process appointed by the Father. It was his meat and that which really and truly sustamed him, and entered as it were into his very existence, to do his Father's will and finish his work. When the brazen serpent was finished, fixed and lifted on the pole, this act found its antitype in that hour when Jesus said," It is finished." All was finished then according to the pattem which God himself had indicated in the wilderness. 3. As destruction was through a &erpent, ealvo.tion also was through a serpent.. "He was made sin for u.e who knew no sin." Jesus was lifted on the cross amid the execration and contempt of well-nigh all Jerusalem. In its esteem Le ,vas worse than Barahbaa. To judge by the way the people spoke and acted, the, consummation of all villinies was gathered up in him. It was a great insult, e.nd so considered in the first days of the gospel, to proclaim him of all persons o.s Saviour of men. And so when Moses lifted up the brazen serpent it may have been 1·eceived indignantly by some. " Do you wish to mock us with the sight of our tormentor? " When we look at Jesus in his saving relation to us, we are brought closer the.~ ever to our own sins, and indeed to the sin of the whole world. We see him, the sinl.ess One1 under a curse, as having died on the tree, manifestly under a curse, groaning fortll as the Father's face passes into the shade, "My God, my God why hast thou forea.ken me? " Forsaken of God, the holy One, forsaken of unfaithful and tenor• OR. XXI. 4-9.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 279