Numbers 21 · The Lantern

The Defeat of Arad

And the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim; and he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

And Israel vowed a vow to the LORD, and said, “If you will surely give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction.”

And the LORD listened to the voice of Israel, and gave over the Canaanite; and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. And the name of the place was called Hormah.

The Bronze Serpent

And they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Sea of Reeds, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people grew short on the way.

And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread and there is no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”

And the LORD sent among the people the fiery serpents, and they bit the people; and many people of Israel died.

And the people came to Moses and said, “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.” And Moses prayed for the people.

And the LORD said to Moses, “Make for yourself a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”

And Moses made a serpent of bronze and set it on the pole; and it was, if a serpent bit a man and he looked to the serpent of bronze, he lived.

For tell me, was it not God who commanded by Moses that no image or likeness of anything which was in heaven above or which was on the earth should be made, and yet who caused the brazen serpent to be made by Moses in the wilderness, and set it up for a sign by which those bitten by serpents were saved? Yet is He free from unrighteousness.

That brazen serpent was hung up as a remedy for the biting serpents, not as a type of him that suffered for us but as a contrast. It saved those that looked upon it, not because they believed it to live but because it was killed, and killed with it were the powers that were subject to it, being destroyed as it deserved. And what is the fitting epitaph for it from us?

To be made whole of a serpent is a great sacrament. What is it to be made whole of a serpent by looking upon a serpent? It is to be made whole of death by believing in one dead. And nevertheless Moses feared and fled. What is it that Moses fled from that serpent? What, brethren, save that which we know to have been done in the gospel?

The Journey to Moab

And the sons of Israel set out, and camped at Oboth.

And they set out from Oboth, and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness that faces Moab, toward the sunrise.

From there they set out, and camped in the Valley of Zered.

From there they set out, and camped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that comes out of the border of the Amorite; for the Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorite.

Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the LORD: “Waheb in Suphah, and the valleys of the Arnon,

and the slope of the valleys that stretches toward the seat of Ar, and leans on the border of Moab.”

And from there to Beer — that is the well of which the LORD said to Moses, “Gather the people, and I will give them water.”

Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well — sing to it! —

the well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people hollowed out, with the scepter, with their staffs.” And from the wilderness to Mattanah,

and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth,

and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the field of Moab, by the top of Pisgah, which looks down on the face of the wasteland.

The Defeat of Sihon

And Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorite, saying,

“Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into field or vineyard; we will not drink water from a well. By the King’s Road we will go, until we have passed through your border.”

But Sihon did not let Israel pass through his border; and Sihon gathered all his people and came out to meet Israel in the wilderness, and came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel.

And Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the sons of Ammon — for the border of the sons of Ammon was strong.

And Israel took all these cities; and Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorite, in Heshbon and in all her daughter towns.

For Heshbon was the city of Sihon king of the Amorite, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.

Therefore the ballad singers say: “Come to Heshbon — let the city of Sihon be built and established.

For fire went out from Heshbon, a flame from the town of Sihon; it consumed Ar of Moab, the lords of the high places of the Arnon.

Woe to you, Moab! You are lost, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorite.

And we shot them down; Heshbon is lost as far as Dibon. And we laid waste as far as Nophah, which reaches to Medeba.”

The Defeat of Og

And Israel lived in the land of the Amorite.

And Moses sent to spy out Jazer; and they captured her daughter towns, and dispossessed the Amorite who was there.

And they turned and went up by the way of Bashan; and Og king of Bashan came out to meet them, he and all his people, for battle at Edrei.

And the LORD said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for into your hand I have given him, and all his people, and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorite, who lived in Heshbon.”

And they struck him, and his sons, and all his people, until no survivor was left to him; and they took possession of his land.