generally believed to have ascended into the very heavens, in order to bring the teaching
unto them?22 Let the history of Moses, then, teach them! They thought they understood
his teaching, but there was one symbol in his history before which tradition literally stood
dumb. They had heard what Moses had taught them; they had seen 'the earthly things' of
God in the Manna which had rained from heaven, and, in view and hearing of it all, they
had not believed, but murmured and rebelled. Then came the judgment of the fiery
serpents, and, in answer to repentant prayer, the symbol of new being, a life restored from
death, as they looked on their no longer living but dead death lifted up before them. A
symbol this, showing forth two elements: negatively, the putting away of the past in their
dead death (the serpent no longer living, but a brazen serpent); and positively, in their
look of faith and hope. Before this symbol, as has been said, trad ition has stood dumb. It
could only suggest one meaning, and draw from it one lesson. Both these were true, and
yet both insufficient. The meaning which tradition attached to it was, that Israel lifted up
their eyes, not merely to the serpent, but rather to their Father in heaven, and had regard
to His mercy. This,23 as St. John afterwards shows (ver. 16), was a true interpretation; but
it left wholly out of sight the Antitype, in gazing on Whom our hearts are uplifted to the
love of God, Who gave His only-begotten Son, and we learn to know and love the Father
in His Son. And the lesson which tradition drew from it was, that this symbol taught, the
dead would live again; for, as it is argued,24 'behold, if God made it that, through the
similitude of the serpent which brought death, the dying should be restored to life, how
much more shall He, Who is Life, restore the dead to life.' And here lies the true
interpretation of what Jesus taught. If the uplifted serpent, as symbol, brought life to the
believing look which was fixed upon the giving, pardoning love of God, then, in the
truest sense, shall the uplifted Son of Man give true life to everyone that believeth,
looking up in Him to the giving and forgiving love of God, which His Son came to bring,
to declare, and to manifest. 'For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth should in Him have eternal life.'25
21. The clause 'Who is in heaven' is regarded, on critical grounds, as a gloss. But, even
so, it seems almost a necessary gloss, in view of the Jewish notions about the ascent of
Moses into heaven. Strange to say, the passage referred to forced Socinus to the curious
dogma that before the commencement of His ministry Jesus had been rapt in spirit to
heaven. (Comp. 'The History and Development of Socinianism,' in the North. Brit. Rev.
May 1859.)
22. This in many places. Comp., for ex., Jer. Targ. on Deut. xxx. 12, and the shocking
notice in Bemid. R. 19. Another view, however, Sukk. 5 a.
23. So already in Wisdom of Solomon xvi. 7; still more clearly in the Targum Pseudo-
Jonathan on Numb. xxi. 8, 9: 'He who lifted up his heart to the name of the Memra of
Jehovah, lived;' and in the Jerusalem Targum on the passage: 'And Moses made a serpent
of brass, and set it on a place aloft [of uplifting] (talé - the same term, curiously, which is
applied by the Jews to Christ as the 'Uplifted' or 'Crucified' One). And it was that every
one that was bitten with the serpent, and lifted his face in prayer (the word implies
humbled prayer) unto His Father Who is in heaven, and looked unto the brazen serpent,
he was healed.' Similarly Rosh haSh iii. 8. Buxtorf's learned tractate on the Brazen
Serpent (Exercitationes, pp. 458-492) adds little to our knowledge.
24. Yalkut, vol. i. p. 240.