Numbers 21:7-9

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

We have sinned. The severity of the scourge and the appalling extent of mortality brought them to a sense of sin; and through the intercessions of Moses, which they implored, they were miraculously healed. He was directed to make the figure of a serpent in brass, to be elevated on a pole or standard, that it might be seen at the extremities of the camp, and that every bitten Israelite who looked to it might be healed. This special method of cure was designed, in the first instance, to show that it was the efficacy of God's power and grace, not the effect of nature or art; and hence, an external sign was chosen, on the ground that the image of the pestiferous animal could not be mistaken as possessed of any natural power or inherent virtue of healing; also, that it might be a type of power of faith in Christ to heal all who look to Him of their sins (John 3:14).

The brazen serpent, it is probable, had not any symbolic meaning. It was not a type of Christ; and the appeal to it, as illustrating the substitutionary work of Christ, holds good only in these two points of resemblance-that it was raised on a column or pole-supposed by some to have had the form of a cross; and that the believing contemplation of it was effectual in producing a bodily cure, as a similar regard of the Saviour leads to the removal of spiritual disease. This view shows the groundlessness of Gesenius' assertion, that the incident is a proof of the serpent being regarded as a beneficent power among the Hebrews, as well as the Egyptians. A juster inference is drawn from it by Bunsen ('Bibelwerk,' 5:, 217), that the historic truth of this narrative, as well as the religious import of the sign, is attested by the careful preservation of the metallic image until an advanced period of the monarchy (see the note at 2 Kings 18:4). But the conjectures of this writer as to the possible mode of cure, as well as of rationalistic writers generally respecting the brazen serpent, are too ridiculous to be given in detail (see Winer, 'Realworterbuch,' sub voce).