Buy a Ticket Already!
Parashat Chukat: Numbers 19:1–22:1
Chaim Dauermann, Simchat Yisrael, West Haven, CT
Here’s an old joke you’ve probably heard before: A man desperately wants to win the lottery, as he knows it will solve his profound financial troubles. Every night, he prays to God, asking him to grant him this one, simple request. However, after weeks and weeks of praying, he has not won the lottery, and eventually he becomes despondent. In his anguish, he cries out to God, asking why he has not yet won. In response, a booming voice sounds from the heavens: “So buy a ticket already!” It’s just a joke, but the lesson is a good one: getting help from God doesn’t mean that nothing will be required of us.
All throughout the Torah record, God is revealing himself to humanity, teaching us about who he is. Many of these events have become formative and foundational tales in our culture: Noah’s ark, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Ten Plagues, and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah are but a well-known few. But this week’s parashah, Chukat, features one story about God that would be easy to miss if we didn’t know where to look for it, just one tiny anecdote tucked amidst the more significant-seeming beats of the wider narrative: the story of the bronze serpent.
One thing that the Torah’s wilderness narrative makes clear is that the children of Israel excelled at complaining, and Parashat Chukat is no exception. In Numbers 20, the children of Israel had complained mightily of their lack of water, and in response, God gave Moses some instructions for what to do. He told him merely to tell the rock to provide, but Moses took things a step further, out of his own frustration, and struck the rock with his staff. Although God was ultimately displeased with him, it did not prevent abundant water from gushing forth. There was more than enough to satisfy the needs of the Israelites.
But then, in the next chapter, we hear of yet more grumbling from the children of Israel: “And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food’” (Num 21:5).
The food they no doubt referred to was the manna they had in abundance, which by the power of God fell from the sky six days a week (with a double portion before the sabbath) to fulfill all of their nutritional needs. God had delivered them from slavery, provided them food and water time and time again, and had led them to the land he had promised them—which they had failed to enter, out of their own fear—yet still they complained. God was not slow to respond: “Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died” (Num 21:6). Desperate for relief, the people appealed to Moses, “‘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” (Num 21:7).
Although the Bible is mum on the exact meaning of “fiery serpent,” it’s generally understood to be a poisonous snake. (Some have put an even finer point on things, and surmised that these were saw-scaled vipers—snakes which remain plentiful throughout the Middle East, and are the most dangerous in the world. Even today, no anti-venom exists to treat their bite.) Whatever these fiery serpents were, God had a peculiar prescription for relief of their venom: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (Num 21:8–9).
Now, anyone knows that simply looking at something, whether a bronze serpent or anything else, cannot cure a deadly snakebite. What healed the Israelites was the power of God, through their display of faith in looking at the serpent raised up by Moses. It’s a testament to God’s character that, despite the lack of faith shown by the Israelites again and again, once they repented, he gave them a means to display faith in him once more, and by it, be saved from certain death. This particular story is instructive because of what it tells us about the nature of God and the redemption he offers us. To put a finer point on it: It’s instructive about the faith he requires of us.
Upon hearing the good news about Yeshua, it’s easy for some to react in an incredulous manner. Just believe, and we are saved? Why would God do something like that? Though it may seem peculiar at first hearing, it is not outside the pattern of God’s character, as we see the exact same process modeled for us, on a smaller scale, in this passage in Chukat: instead of a snake’s venom, think of sin; instead of a bronze model of a serpent, think of the Messiah. In the wilderness, God provided redemption to the children of Israel through the likeness of that which was killing them. So, too, could it be said of his provision of Messiah: “By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3b).
For the Israelites in the wilderness, it was not quite so simple as looking at the snake and being healed: They had to first repent before God provided them with an antidote to the venom, in the form of the bronze serpent. And then, when looking upon the serpent, they had to believe they would be healed. So, too, must we do when it comes to Messiah: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Or, as Yeshua himself said: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17b).
Perhaps the most famous gospel passage in the world is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” These words of Yeshua testify to the pure and simple gospel message. But it is easier to understand the reality this passage portrays if we keep in mind what Yeshua says in the two verses preceding it: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15).
If we are ready to repent, God is ready to save us. All that remains left to do is buy a ticket.