Fr. Mike explains how the bronze serpent is a prefiguration of Jesus on the Cross. We also continue to learn how God's laws in Deuteronomy redefine the social and sexual norms for the Israelites to teach them about the dignity of every human person. Today's readings are Numbers 21, Deuteronomy 22, and Psalm 102. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Chapter 1: What is the significance of the bronze serpent in Numbers 21?
When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who dwelt in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.
And the Lord listened to the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of the place was called Hormah. From Mount Hor, they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom and the people became impatient on the way. And 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 loathe this worthless food. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many sons 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 may take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it up as a sign, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it up as a sign. And if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. the journey to Moab.
And the sons of Israel set out and encamped at Oboth. And they set out from Oboth and encamped at Ai Abarim in the wilderness, which is opposite Moab toward the sunrise. From there, they set out and encamped in the valley of Zered.
From there they set out and encamped on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness that extends from the boundary of the Amorites, for the Arnon is the boundary of Moab between Moab and the Amorites.
Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord, Waheb in Sufa, in the valleys of the Arnon, and the slope of the valleys that extends to the seat of Ar, and leans to the border of Moab. And from there they continued to beer, that is, the well of which the Lord said to Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give them water.
Then Israel sang this song, Spring up, O well, sing to it, the well which the princes dug, which the nobles of the people delved with the scepter and with their staves. And from the wilderness they went on to Matanah, and from Matanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth. and from Baymoth to the valley lying in the region of Moab by the top of Pisgah, which looks down upon the desert.
Sihon, the king of the Amorites, defeated. Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into field or vineyard. We will not drink the water of a well. We will go by the king's highway until we have passed through your territory. But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory.
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Chapter 2: How does Deuteronomy 22 redefine social norms for the Israelites?
So you shall do with his garment. So you shall do with any lost thing of your brothers, which he loses and you find. You may not withhold your help. You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and withhold your help from them. You shall help him to lift them up again.
A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. If you chance to come upon a bird's nest, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young, you shall let the mother go.
But the young you may take to yourself, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long. When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house if anyone fall from it.
You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited to the sanctuary, the crop which you have sown, and the yield of the vineyard. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a mingled stuff, wool and linen together. You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of your cloak with which you cover yourself.
Concerning sexual relations. Let's read it. And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man to wife, and he spurns her. And behold, he has made shameful charges against her, saying, I did not find in your daughter the tokens of virginity. And yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity.
And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. And the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him. And they shall find him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman because he has brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not put her away all his days.
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Chapter 3: What are the miscellaneous laws discussed in Deuteronomy 22?
But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, Then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house. And the men of the city shall stone her to death with stones because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.
If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
If there is a betrothed virgin and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.
but if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed and the man seizes her and lies with her then only the man who lie with her shall die but to the young woman you shall do nothing in the young woman there is no offense punishable by death for this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor because he came upon her in the open country and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her
If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not put her away all the days of his life. A man shall not take his father's wife, nor shall he uncover her who is his father's.
Psalm 102, prayer to the eternal King for help.
A prayer of one afflicted when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me. Answer me speedily in the day when I call. For my days pass away like smoke and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and withered.
I forget to eat my bread. Because of my loud groaning, my bones cling to my flesh. I'm like a vulture of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake. I'm like a lonely bird on the housetop. All the day my enemies taunt me. Those who deride me use my name for a curse. For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink.
Because of your indignation and anger, for you have taken me up and thrown me away. My days are like an evening shadow. I wither away like grass. But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever. Your name endures to all generations. You will arise and have pity on Zion. It is the time to favor her. The appointed time has come. For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust.
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Chapter 4: How do the sexual norms in Deuteronomy 22 reflect on Israelite society?
The nations will fear the name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth your glory. For the Lord will build up Zion. He will appear in his glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute and will not despise their supplication. Let this be recorded for a generation to come so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord, that he looked down from his holy height from heaven.
The Lord looked at the earth to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who are doomed to die. that the men may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise, when peoples gather together and kingdoms to worship the Lord. He has broken my strength in midcourse. He has shortened my days.
O my God, I say, do not take me from here in the midst of my days, you whose years endure throughout all generations. Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure. They will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing and they pass away. But you are the same and your years have no end.
The children of your servants shall dwell secure.
Their posterity shall be established before you. Father in heaven, we give you praise and we thank you.
We thank you for your word. We thank you for loving us. We thank you for choosing us. We thank you for showing us your heart, the heart of a father who loves his children. In the midst of this day, Lord, we call out to your name. We call upon your name and we ask you, Father, to send us your Holy Spirit in the name of your son, Jesus Christ.
As you receive our thanks and as you receive our praise in Jesus' name, we ask you also to send your spirit upon us in Jesus' name. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So a couple of quick things. What we want to do is I want to focus on the fact that in the book of Numbers chapter 21, a couple of major things have happened.
Some of those things we already heard about. Remember at the beginning of Deuteronomy, this is how many days ago, maybe, I think, I don't know, almost 20 days ago in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses was giving a recap of all the things that happened. And in that recap, he mentions that we heard yesterday, uh, they were not allowed to go through the land of Edom, right?
Remember the descendants of Esau, but they were led into battle against Sihon, the king of the Amorites and Og, the king of Bashan. And today in numbers 21, we get to hear that story of how the people of Israel were led by the Lord into battle against the Amorites and against the king of Bashan, Og the king of Bashan.
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Chapter 5: What is the theme of Psalm 102?
Our salvation is given to us in this unique and powerful way. One of the things I remember hearing said was why would God ask Moses to make a bronze serpent? Well, the serpent was the cause of their pain. The serpent was the cause of their dying. And so they looked upon an image of what caused them to die in order to have healing, in order to have a life.
Jesus on the cross, remember we heard this yesterday, curses anyone who hangs on a tree from Book of Deuteronomy. Jesus took the curse upon himself. And so what happens is the sign of our death, the sign of our sin becomes the symbol of his victory. So on the cross, Jesus is carrying our sin. That's the symbol. It's a symbol of my sin when Jesus is on the cross.
When we look upon Christ, and this is kind of metaphorically, but also truly, truly, we look upon Christ on the cross, we see the sign of my shame, the sign of my sin, that's become the symbol of our hope. And that's what's happened in Numbers 21, what happens in Christianity is the sign of our shame becomes the symbol of our hope. The sign of our sin becomes the symbol of our hope.
Remember Father De Pavanca once said that and stuck with me and I want to pass it on to you today. When we're reading from the book of Deuteronomy, as it says, miscellaneous laws. One thing is noted about these miscellaneous laws is they have to do, remember we talked about this yesterday, so important for us to understand. These people are living in a violent and brutal world.
And God is giving us his word so it's a little less violent, a little less brutal. And so the command is you have your brother and any citizen of Israel. And if his ox or sheep goes astray, if he needs help, basically you're gonna help him. That's it. That's it. If your brother needs help, you're going to help him. And then other things like you should not wear anything that belongs to men.
Men wear men's clothes. Women wear women's clothes. That's a key thing here. But also this command to show kindness to animals, which is so interesting, right? Because back in the day, once again, a violent and vicious and brutal world would say, no, these animals are just animals. You come across and think of how the kindness of God here, a bird's nest.
whether it has eggs or it has fledglings or whatever you call like newly hatched birds, if the mother is there, you cannot kill both the mother and her young. Why? Because they'll be cruel. You can take the eggs or you can take the young, but let the mother go. There's something about that that's just like, wow, here's God who just has even these small acts of kindness
Or listen, what strikes me as being so interesting, when you build a new house, make a parapet for your roof, basically make a guardrail that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your house if anyone falls from your house. It's just so remarkable. But the last one is gonna be really interesting. And the last one has to do with the laws of sexual morality.
Keeping this in mind, that up until this moment, up until Israel, up until the Jewish people, up until God reveals himself, Women were considered second class. Women were considered being lesser than, just like children were considered to be less than.
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