Numbers 21:4-9

The bronze serpent. God did not at once take away the plague. Each individual received healing only when he performed an act of faith, by looking at the serpent. An early Jewish writer says that it was not the serpent that brought the Israelites healing, but the fact that they -lifted up their eyes and directed their heart towards their heavenly Father." This is one of the most familiar and famous of Biblical narratives, owing to our Lord's reference to it, in John 3:14, as typical of the -lifting up" of the Son of Man. The close connexion between the plague and the instrument of healing is, to the Christian, symbolical of the fact that -Him who knew no sin he [God] made to be sin on our behalf" (2 Corinthians 5:21). It was traditionally believed that the bronze serpent which Moses erected was the same which existed in Hezekiah's day. He destroyed it because it had long been an object of worship (2 Kings 18:4).