March 16, 2021
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Numbers? Here’s today’s reading:
Numbers 21 (NIV)
Arad Destroyed
1 When the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming along the road to Atharim, he attacked the Israelites and captured some of them. 2 Then Israel made this vow to the Lord: “If you will deliver these people into our hands, we will totally destroy their cities.”......Continue Reading
The travel and the victories are amazing in this chapter but of course not without the occasional grumbling of the people! God quickly responds with the fiery serpents! I do find it strange that the way God chose to deliver them from this punishment was to have Moses make a bronze serpent for them to look to to be healed when bit. It seems so close to creating an idol even though I am sure that isn’t what God intended.
Numbers 21
I imagine it is amazing to many of us that the Israelites complain every time they face a problem and come up with the same whining. I hope we all do better responding in faith and let the default response be, “God this is hard and I have no clue how you are going to take care of this, but you have rescued me so many times, I have to believe You’ve got something up Your sleeve.” Obviously thoughts like that were foreign to these Jews and so God brings a form of judgement. The people then repent because they now get the point and then God provides a solution. We can read alot into why a bronze snake, but the main thing to me is that God gave the people a focal point of obedience and faith. It is so indicative of the way God works. He often says, here’s the solution, are you going to choose to access it and are you willing to believe because the solution is usually based in faith.
The lesson for the rest of the chapter…..don’t mess with God’s people….
Numbers 21
Numbers 21
The people must take the long way to go around Edom and become discouraged and grumbly. They are getting closer and closer to their chance to actually go into the promised land and they are going to blow it again! God sends fiery serpents resulting in repentance for those that look upon the bronze snake. It is interesting that all they have to do is look at it.
Kelly, I also thought that it would be considered an idol, and I guess it did become an idol later. 🙁
This is from enduringword: “Sadly, even this God-ordained symbol was made into an idol. In the reforms of King Hezekiah, he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan (2 Kings 18:4). Fallen man can take any good and glorious thing from God and find an idolatrous use for it.”
34The Lord said to Moses, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have delivered him into your hands, along with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.”
35So they struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army, leaving them no survivors. And they took possession of his land.