RCL reading for Sunday, March 22, 2009:
Excerpt from The New Revised Standard Version
via Oremus (http://bible.oremus.org)
Numbers 21:4-9
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way.
5 The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.’
6 Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.
7 The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people.
8 And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’
9 So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
QUESTIONS
How is the phrase “serpent of bronze” a pun in Hebrew?
What do you think is accountable for the ancient belief in the relationship between snakes and healing?
Have you ever been to a snake-handling service?
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Genesis is about etiologies and this is another one. There was this bronze image of a snake which was the object of intense veneration in the temple and there had to be some story behind it. Its name was Nehushtan. It became the fix of the plague of serpents brought on by the Israelite grousing. Can you imagine complaining about too much manna from heaven? It was the sympathetic magic to counteract the snakebite.
ReplyDeleteAs far back as the Gilgamesh Epic snakes have been associated with healing. It was a snake who stole the herb that had been given to Gilgamesh to make him immortal. Snakes had been witnessed to shed their skin and become young again. Asclepios, the Greek god of medicine, was the twin of a snake. The sick who came to his temple slept there in hopes that they would be told a remedy for their illness by a snake who appeared in their dream. Apollo, the father of Asclepios, was the patron of the Delphic Oracle where a priestess gave prophesy. She was called the Pythoness. In the days of Freudian psychoanalysis all this was plain enough, especially since the suppliants were commonly seeking treatment for barrenness.
ReplyDeleteThanks. That's right. I forgot that there are snakes on the American Medical Association logo of the staff of Aesculapius. Very interesting!
ReplyDelete