A story of a Snake: The most cunning of all creatures

Gather round dear friends and hear my story if you will.... A story that might make you think... that might make you angry... or might make you laugh...

Either way its just a story...

take it as you will



Told to be the most subtle of all creatures, The snake makes some interesting appearances within the pages of the bible. Revelation defines "the snake" as Satan specifically...

Revelation 20:2
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

So now that this symbolization is known for my story... Lets go back a few years....

Waaaaay, back.... To where our story begins... written millenia ago...

A story of a women in a garden....

Genesis 3

3 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

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Here we have a nieve (ironic?) woman being "beguiled" (as paul put it) by a talking snake... tempting her to eat of the tree of forbidden fruit that "God" placed in the garden...

Now obviouly a talking snake is ludicrous, but lets not focus on the fairytales here, this is about the symbolization of the snake (previously defined as satan)



So...we fast foward a few thousand years... To a man called a prophet of God... Who led his people out of Egypt, to the land of milk and honey (which by the way, he never made it to) They traveled the desert for a certain time led by this man, until they came to what was called "the mountain of God" where he ascended to the peak... And saw a burning bush... and a voice called out his name... Moses...

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6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

7 And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

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And the voice told him to go to pharoh... and tell him to let my people go.... But moses was afraid and didn't believe he could possibly say such things to the ruler of Egypt...

But the voice shows him a sign.... even a Symbol of his power....

.........

And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.

2 And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.

3 And he said. Cast in on the ground. And he cast it on the ground and he became a SERPENT; and Moses fled from before it.

4 And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand:

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During thier time around this mountian this voice gave Moses the commandments of God... one of which happened to be...Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

So we continue our journey with Moses, leading his people away from the mountian and back into the desert... eventually his followers got tired of following Moses, and began to speak against him and this God that spoke to him on the mountian...

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4 And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.

5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

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This angered this God... And he sought revenge against these people...

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6 And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

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And the people were afraid, and went to moses again... wondering how they could end the torment of this God....

And this God spoke onto Moses again saying....

No worries about that commandment i gave you...

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8 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.

9 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.

And the people were saved once again from this God... and his Wrath...

Many years later another man spoke of serpents... and a generation of "Vipers"...

But that is a different story...

Perhaps one for another night...

Thanks for listening to me tell my tail.... (Im a cat... get it? )

Hope you enjoyed it

And the moral of the story is.........?

reply to post by Akragon


You miss the point. This are was long infested with these serpents.

Deuteronomy 8

15 He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

19 If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

This time, in Numbers 21, they were coming from a victory against the Canaanites, where God allowed them the upper hand. Their grumbling against God for the food, the rough wilderness, water and so on moved God to show them who was protecting them and what they were protected from. Your premise is that God dabbles in snakes and possibly to suggest that God is the serpent. Nothing could be further from the truth. God was and still is protecting his people from the serpents.

Now that you know the truth, are you willing to change your premise for the truth?

Matthew Henry

"III. The righteous judgment which God brought upon them for their murmuring, Num. 21:6. He sent fiery serpents among them, which bit or stung many of them to death. The wilderness through which they had passed was all along infested with those fiery serpents, as appears, Deut. 8:15. But hitherto God had wonderfully preserved his people from receiving hurt by them, till now that they murmured, to chastise them for which these animals, which hitherto had shunned their camp, now invade it. Justly are those made to feel God’s judgments that are not thankful for his mercies. These serpents are called fiery, from their colour, or from their rage, or from the effects of their bitings, inflaming the body, putting it immediately into a high fever, scorching it with an insatiable thirst. They had unjustly complained for want of water (Num. 21:5), to chastise them for which God sends upon them this thirst, which no water would quench. Those that cry without cause have justly cause given them to cry out. They distrustfully concluded that they must die in the wilderness, and God took them at their word, chose their delusions, and brought their unbelieving fears upon them; many of them did die. They had impudently flown in the face of God himself, and the poison of asps was under their lips, and now these fiery serpents (which, it should seem, were flying serpents, Isa. 14:29) flew in their faces and poisoned them. They in their pride had lifted themselves up against God and Moses, and now God humbled and mortified them, by making these despicable animals a plague to them. That artillery is now turned against them which had formerly been made use of in their defence against the Egyptians. He that brought quails to feast them let them know that he could bring serpents to bite them; the whole creation is at war with those that are in arms against God."

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
And the moral of the story is.........?

Anyone can cherry pick scripture and turn it into a story...

This brass snake sounds a whole lot like idolatry doesn't it? Isn't god supposed to be against idolatry?

So the snake bites you and the only way to live is if you look at it? That's almost like the snake holding the person it bit prisoner, kinda like today's religion.

People are "bit" at birth and in order to stay alive they have to stare at the thing (religion) that bit them. If they don't they die. Sounds a whole lot like today's threat of hell doesn't it?

Jesus is the NT's version of the brass snake, at least Paul's version of Jesus.

Also, Jesus references this in John.

John 3:14-15
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so then must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

Is Jesus saying that he must be lifted up or is he warning of what "they" would eventually do?

Notice how he calls himself the son of man. Why would he call himself this? Doesn't he clearly state he is the son of god many times throughout the bible? Why in this instance would he use the phrase son of man?

My theory is that maybe by him saying son of man instead of son of god, he is separating himself from the son that man would eventually turn him into and lift up like Moses did with the brass snake.

The Jesus of the church is not the true son of god, it is the one made up in the minds of men (ahem Paul), hence son of man.

What if God sent Satan to deal out the punishments? It seems he doesnt like them judging by the David and angel census incident. He could have been the one doing the accusing.