The Serpent on the Pole
A Riddle for the Logical Mind
Three verses. One logical answer. Can you find it?
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Deuteronomy 4:15-16 (KJV) Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD [Yahuah] spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
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Numbers 21:8 (KJV) And the LORD [Yahuah] 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.
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2 Kings 18:4 (KJV) He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
Read all three. Lay them side by side. What must be true?
Yahushua said what the serpent pictured.
John 3:14 (KJV) And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
- Yahuah showed no form, so none would be made. — Deuteronomy 4:15-16
- Yahuah Himself ordered the serpent made. — Numbers 21:8
- Israel burned incense to it, and Hezekiah broke it. — 2 Kings 18:4
If the image Yahuah ordered became an idol, the images men make will too.
Why It Matters
The church teaches that crosses, crucifixes, and pictures of Jesus are aids to worship, and that the image commandment was only about pagan idols. Moses gave the reason for the command: "ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that Yahuah spake unto you... lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image" (Deuteronomy 4:15-16). The ban was on images of Yahuah Himself, not only pagan gods. Then came the hard case. Yahuah commanded Moses to make a serpent of brass and set it on a pole, so the bitten could look and live (Numbers 21:8). Seven centuries later, Hezekiah "brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it" (2 Kings 18:4). He called it Nehushtan, a piece of brass. Scripture praises him for it.
If an image Yahuah Himself commanded became an idol once people began to honor it, then images He never commanded stand on worse ground.
The early assemblies resisted images. The Council of Elvira, around 305, ruled that pictures should not be placed in churches, lest what is worshipped be painted on walls. Five centuries later the Second Council of Nicaea (787) reversed course and approved the veneration of icons. The crucifix, the statue, and the painted face followed.
This matters for two reasons. First, no one knows what Yahushua looked like. Scripture gives no description, and Isaiah says He had "no form nor comeliness" to draw the eye (Isaiah 53:2). Every picture is an artist's invention set before worshippers. Second, Yahushua used the serpent as a sign of belief, not an object to keep. "As Moses lifted up the serpent... even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should... have eternal life" (John 3:14-15). The healing came by trusting Yahuah's word, never by the brass. John's last line to the assembly is "keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21).
Revelation's final test of worship centers on an image. The world is told to "make an image to the beast" and worship it (Revelation 13:14-15). The people who refuse are the people who learned the second commandment and kept it.