The Brazen Serpent.
Numbers xxi. 6.
The children of Israel being obliged to take a longer journey than they expected before they were permitted to enter the promised land, murmured against the Lord and against Moses. Then the Lord in his anger sent fiery serpents among the people, which bit them; and much people of Israel died. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, “Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.” And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. The children of Israel continued their journey towards the promised land; none of them, however, who had left the land of Egypt, save Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, were permitted to enter it, for having sinned so often against the Lord. Even Moses the servant of the Lord, though permitted to see it from the top of Mount Nebo, was not permitted to enter; but died in the land of Moab, when he was an hundred and twenty years of age. And the children of Israel wept for Moses thirty days.
FINIS.
THE HISTORY