Thought for the Week:

Does the serpent [set on the standard] have the power to kill or to give life? No. But so long as the Israelites lifted their eyes upward and submitted to their Father in Heaven, they were healed. If they did not, they would waste away. (m.Rosh Hashanah 3:8)

Commentary:

And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. (Numbers 21:9)

When Yeshua says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14), He was hinting about the kind of death He was going to die, but there is a second meaning to these words as well. He was speaking not only of His death, but also of His ascension forty days after the resurrection.

God told Moses to "make a fiery serpent, and set it …