“The soul of the people became very discouraged.” 

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22: 37). In other words, love the Lord with all your emotions, thoughts, and choices. We all get discouraged from time to time, but it is in times of uncertainty, conflict, and resistance that God tests our character to determine our level of trustworthiness – and He promotes the trustworthy.

Sometimes, learning from bad examples can be just as effective as learning from good ones. Here, we can learn from a bad example about the consequences of hardening our hearts to the Lord. The danger grew in proportion to the dissatisfaction that mounted within the hearts of the Israelites because we know that, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). And, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21).

“The people spoke against God and against Moses.” 

This was a big no-no. I’ve been guilty of using sour words when I’ve been upset and I repent from speaking foolish idle words, but there is never an excuse for using the Lord’s name in vain. I feel sick to my stomach when I hear people misuse God’s name because they don’t realize that words have power and they curse themselves by speaking the words of the adversary. Here, the Israelites referred to God with the Hebrew word be·lo·him. It might as well have been a curse word because it literally means against God. That word may look familiar because it is a derivative of the Hebrew word Elohim, which is a plural word for the living God. The people understood the concept of the plurality of God, which we refer to as the Holy Trinity.

“There is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” 

I can’t believe the Israelites lied about not having food, especially after getting in trouble for collecting too much. ^“The Israelites called the food manna. It was like coriander seeds. It was white and tasted like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). “The people would go around and gather it, then grind it in a handmill or crush it in a mortar. They would cook it in a pot or make round loaves of bread out of it. It tasted like rich pastry made with olive oil” (Numbers 11:8). This sounds like the perfect superfood, packed with macronutrients, everything they needed to be healthy and strong. Plus, the Bible describes it as eating delicious pastry cakes, and they didn’t even have to eat their vegetables.

The Lord provided this bread from heaven as a symbol and foreshadowing of the sweet, saving grace of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. The bread I will give to bring life to the world is my flesh” (John 6:51). The Israelites had been invited to the Lord’s supper table to partake in communion with Him, but they disrespected the Lord of Hosts as well as His eternal covenant to us through Jesus, the Bread of Life.

When I was a kid, if you disrespected mom’s cooking, you didn’t eat. I’m amazed at the choice of words used by the Israelites. Here are the Hebrew words for loathsome, worthless, and bread.

• Loathsome (ka·tzah): detestable, abhorrent, or sickened with dread
• Worthless (hak·ke·lo·kel): wretched, miserable, contemptible
• Bread (bal·le·chem): bad bread, bad food

I don’t know about you, but if I had said that to my mother, she would have washed my mouth out with soap, which is what we must do to the poisonous serpents that try to latch onto us through hard-heartedness. Our praise and worship to the Lord repels the enemy and he has no choice but to release his grip and flee back into darkness.

Jesus said, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” (Matthew 7:9-10) The emphasis in these questions surrounds the word ask. The Word says “Ask and you shall receive” (7:7) and “You have not because you ask not” (James 4:3). The apostle Paul reminds us, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phillipians 4:6). But the Word also says, “Do everything without arguing or complaining” (Philippians 2:14). Moses warned the people when he said, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,  keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6-7).

“So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.”

Many of the people died and those bodies had to be removed in order to prevent the spread of disease. This was particularly inconvenient since Moses had just given them new instructions about handling dead bodies. Chapter nineteen specifies that if anyone was to come into contact with a dead body, they were to remain in quarantine for 7 days. Sometimes, we must sleep in the bed we make for ourselves. In this case, the Israelites were confined in quarantine with the very snakes that were killing them. My dad once told me, “There’s no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.” Sometimes, God allows us to back ourselves into a corner with nowhere to look but up and ask for help. The Israelites were suffering the consequences of consistently operating in opposition to God and the authority He ordained through Moses. They could have avoided a lot of pain and anguish by trading their spirit of heaviness for a garment of praise (Isaiah 61:3).

I will never forget the time I was bitten by a snake. It was a four-foot-long python and it was one of the most painful experiences I have ever endured. I’m not ashamed to admit that I screamed like a little girl as it sunk its fangs into my hand. I’m thankful it was not poisonous, however, my whole hand felt like it was on fire. The only way I can describe it was as if my hand was made of metal and it was glowing red from the heat of a fiery furnace. Waves of pain pummeled like a hammer against an anvil. As days passed, my hand began to cool down but became rigid, much like hot metal when removed from the forge. There was a point when I couldn’t move it at all. I’m so thankful that I fully recovered. I spent a lot of time in prayer during that ordeal, but I remember feeling a sense of peace, knowing that my experience would not be wasted. I believe that it was, largely in part, for the very purpose of this message.

“Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people.”

This time, the people spoke to Moses about God with respect and reverence. The Hebrew word they used for the Lord was Yah·weh, which is defined as the proper name of the God of Israel. They acknowledged their sin, confessed and repented for speaking evil things against the Lord, and submitted to God by submitting to their spiritual authority, who was Moses. 

The Israelites were applying what the Lord would later instruct King Solomon to do in the midst of a plague when He said, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.”

Here is where things get very interesting for my narrative as a researcher. I decided to do a Biblical word study on the significance of bronze as a metal, especially as it related to the custom and culture of the Israelites. Bronze was used to make censers because it withstood high heat and it would not rust. Also, unlike steel, bronze will not generate dangerous sparks when being stuck against a hard surface.

Earlier, we learned what happened during strike twelve: The earth swallowed up the men of Korah. They led a rebellion against Moses by challenging his position and claiming rights to the tabernacle of the Lord. So, Moses instructed the men, all two hundred and fifty of them, to bring censors filled with incense to the tabernacle so the Lord would choose which of them was holy. Then the Lord caused the earth to split open, consuming the households of all who were part of the rebellion, closed the earth back over them, and then consumed the two hundred and fifty men with fire from heaven (Numbers 16:1-40). Then, the Lord told Moses, “The censers of these men who sinned against their own souls, let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar. Because they presented them before the Lord, therefore they are holy; and they shall be a sign to the children of Israel” (Numbers 16:38).

When the Lord told Moses to set a serpent on a pole, Moses understood what materials to use and chose the same bronze used to make the sensors and altar overlays, all of which represent atoning sacrificial offerings and memorials to the Lord.

Much like a snake bite, the most common symptoms of the coronavirus have been described as burning and aching. The Israelites who had been bitten and living in quarantine may have felt like they were coming out of the crucible as they looked upon the first crucifix, acknowledging their sin and remembering that it should have been them. This was a foreshadowing of Passover and the cross Jesus Christ bore for our sins. Like Passover, the Israelites were confined to quarantined isolation while death claimed anyone who would not acknowledge and accept the atoning sacrifice. Jesus died on Passover, taking upon Himself the sins of the world for our forgiveness and freedom.

Most people know John 3:16, but the two verses that precede this famous verse point all the way back to the bronze serpent. Jesus said “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

When referencing these events that took place in the wilderness, the apostle Paul wrote, “Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6).