Jehovah Punishes the People With Snakes

(Book of Numbers 21:4 - 21:9)
The Israelites, skirting the border of Edom, traveled from Mount Hor by a route toward the Red Sea.  But, growing impatient along the way, the people complained to Moses, "Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the desert.  There's no food here or water, and we hate this horrible food!”

Jehovah sent venomous serpents among the people.  Many Israelites were bitten and died.  The people came to Moses and pleaded with him, "We know we have sinned by speaking against you and Jehovah, but please pray to Jehovah so he will take the snakes away from us."

Moses thus prayed for the people, and Jehovah made this reply to Moses: "Make an image of a snake and attach it to a pole.  Anyone who is bitten may look at it and he will survive."  And so Moses crafted a bronze snake and put it on a pole.  Whenever someone was bitten by a snake, he could look at it and he would survive.

Notes
1. The Israelites begin their grumbling again, making the same case, no water, no decent food (still eating manna?), why did you ever lead us out of Egypt.  They are world-class whiners and seem to be continually undergoing all but fatal attacks of buyer's remorse.  Their frustration, though, is understandable, for they are trapped in a situation where they have no options.  They have practically no control over their own destiny, and any attempts they may make to exert their own will incur divine wrath.  And they are now traveling away from their Promised Land.

2. Again Jehovah punishes his people for griping, for any complaint against him or against Moses, he regards as an act of betrayal punishable by death.  This time he sends poisonous snakes to plague his people.  As usual, Moses must intercede to save his people from Jehovah's murderous impulses.

3. Although he responds favorably to Mose' appeal, Jehovah doesn't remove the snakes.  Instead, he devises a solution that can only strike a modern as comically absurd, primitive witch-doctor stuff.  Make a bronze image of a snake, attach it to a pole, and anyone who is bitten by a poisonous snake will be cured if he just looks at the image -- very simple: no potions, no prayers, no spells.  Of course the Israelites, with some small degree of ingenuity, could have devised their own, better solution -- simply kill the snakes.

4.  The bronze snake (called the Nehustan -- in Hebrew serpent is nehash and bronze, nehoshet) was apparently saved and, in later times, worshiped.  Ironic that Jehovah, who forbade the adoration of images, would command the making of something very much like an idol.

5. The poisonous snakes referred to were probably not cobras or horned vipers, but more likely the Israeli saw-scaled viper, which is red in color, inhabits rocky desert areas, attacks with a quick, leaping strike, and inflicts a painful bite that causes death in hours.  And there is the possibility that some extinct or extraterrestrial species might have been referred to, even something that might pass for a dragon.