Or HaChaim on Numbers 21:8/אור החיים על במדבר כ״א:ח׳

1 עשה לך שרף, "make a fiery snake for yourself, etc." Our sages in Avodah Zarah 44 have this to say on the peculiar word לך, for yourself, in our verse. "The Torah says לך to tell us that Moses was to construct the serpent using his own funds. The reason for this was that a person may not forbid the use of something which is not his." Thus far the Talmud. The meaning of these words is that seeing Moses had made the serpent using his own funds it became his personal property. No one has the right to forbid others something that is not his. [The problem was that in the days of King Chiskiya (Kings II chapter 18) the people appear to have offered incense to this copper snake Moses had made, and to prevent them from doing so King Chiskiyah broke this snake into little pieces. Ed.] Seeing Moses had made this copper snake, the leaders of subsequent generations had been unable to destroy this snake or to forbid the people to worship it in some form. This explanation of the words עשה לך is one that emerged in the course of historical developments. At this time it is hardly likely that G'd meant for Moses to pay for the snake out of his own funds in order that at a later time the kings or religious leaders should be unable to forbid the people to use it as an object of worship. We must understand why G'd would have phrased His instructions so that we could have understood them to mean that Moses pay for the snake. We must also try and understand why G'd called it a שרף, whereas what Moses made is described as נחש (verse 9). Furthermore, we must try and understand why G'd decreed that an object such as this, which resembled a form of idol, had to be made altogether and why looking up to it would heal a person who had sustained a bite. Our sages in Rosh Hashanah 29 claim that as long as the Israelites looked heavenwards this was a demonstration of their faith in G'd, etc. If indeed this was all that G'd had in mind, why did He not order them to look straight at heaven instead of looking at the snake as an intermediary?

2In accordance with what we have explained earlier that the reason that both נחשים as well as שרפים attacked the people was because they had slandered both Moses and G'd, we can understand G'd's instructions as meant to counteract both kinds of sins. G'd told Moses to "make for yourself a snake," meaning that with regards to the slander the people were guilty of against Moses himself he was to make a נחש, whereas with regard to the people having slandered G'd he was to make a שרף. It was important for the people to recognise that their sin was twofold, that they had slandered G'd as well as Moses. I will explain this in detail later on.

3Moses was astute enough to construct a copper snake (נחש נחשת) for had he not made the snake out of copper (the same word as נחש) the Saraph G'd had commanded him to make [without specifying the material it was to be made of, Ed.] would not have symbolised both sins. This is why the Torah described what Moses actually made not as a שרף but as a נחש נחשת. The animal itself symbolised the slander against G'd, whereas the material from which Moses constructed it symbolised the slander against Moses the people were guilty of.

4As to the overall meaning of the whole episode, it remains for us to explain why Moses' prayer did not suffice to remove both kinds of snakes from the Israelites so no one would be bitten and require a cure. Clearly, G'd had found that the people on whose behalf Moses had prayed had not repented, or at least had not not been sufficiently penitent. This is spite of the fact that they did say חטאנו, "we have sinned in having spoken out against the Lord and against you" (verse 7). The most important element of repentance is an undertaking not to again become guilty of the sin one asks G'd to forgive. The people had failed to mention such an undertaking on their part. This is why their affliction had not been removed. G'd in His wisdom and His desire to cure the Israelites, invented the stratagem of the artificial snake placed high above the people to give them a chance to either repent properly and not be bitten or to be bitten to awaken them to the need to repent properly. He commanded them to look up to the snake which would result in their being cured.

5Their looking at the snake was meant to symbolise seven different things.

61) Kohelet 10,11 attributes a snake's biting to it having been incited. The incitement for the snake to attack humans are their sins. When there is no such incitment, לחש, the snake remains silent, harmless. We are to learn from this that if we keep our tongues silent and do not whisper (לחש) slanderous remarks, the snake will be as harmless as the reproduction Moses had made and placed on a pole.

72) The Israelites would be prompted to recognise the nature of their sin. We are told in Tikkuney HaZohar chapter 13 concerning a certain serpent found nesting in a tower that this was the angel of death which is compared to a serpent and had seduced original man. Placing this replica of a serpent on a pole was to symbolise the serpent which is found in a high place. The people were to recognise that their slanderous comment had been responsible for placing the serpent in such a high position. They had been guilty of exactly what the original serpent had done when it made slanderous remarks about G'd who is so High. They were also to remember how they had slandered Moses when they realised what material Moses had made the serpent of.

83) They were to realise the difference between a serpent which crawls on earth, which is the lowest of the low and brings death in its wake, and the serpent constructed by Moses and placed high on a pole which brought life in that it revived people who had been bitten by the deadly poison of a snake. This should remind the people that they had spoken out against the mannah and had professed their preference for bread grown in the ground. Concerning such comments the prophet Isaiah exclaimed in Isaiah 5,20 "Ah, all those who call evil good and good evil, etc."

94) The copper snake on the pole was designed to awaken in the Israelites the need to do Teshuvah concerning their complaint that G'd had led them through a desert in which their needs could not be provided instead of leading them on a route where there was grain and regular bread. They were to realise that the reason G'd who dwells in the heavens had done so was to make them totally dependent on Him for their sustenance and all their other needs and that there is no other source on which they could rely. G'd managed to make this point very clear by refusing to heal the people who had been bitten unless they raised their eyes and looked at the copper snake on the pole, i.e. in the direction of their Father in Heaven. This is what the Talmud in Rosh Hashanah 29 meant which we quoted earlier. The Talmud had only omitted to draw the comparison with the nature of the people's slander, etc. and that G'd wanted the people to rely on Him just as a son relies on the table of his father morning, noon, and night. If G'd had led the people through civilised country they would not have experienced this closeness to G'd as they would have bought their supplies. In that event their whole lifestyle would have been one that would have estranged them from realisation that G'd cared for them every step of the way.

105) G'd also wanted to counter the criticism implied in the people's reference to their having been led through inhospitable country which required miracles in order to keep them alive. We have a principle that one does not rely on miracles because miracles have a habit of failing to materialise when one needs them most. It is a fact that people who deny G'd's miracles endeavour to demonstrate by all kinds of deceptive devices that what are claimed to be miracles are in actual fact natural occurrences which had to occur at that particular time and at that particular place. The argument of these heretics is based on the fact that the so-called miracle occurred only once and only in a particular location. Inasmuch that the people might have harboured similar thoughts, G'd determined to demonstrate that He could maintain such miracles on a permanent basis by supplying the Jewish people with all their needs through miraculous means for a period of 40 years. Bamidbar Rabbah 19,23 describes that Moses threw the copper snake into the air and that it remained suspended there without being supported from the ground. Any person, who had been bitten (even if not by a snake) who would look up at it and would acknowledge that he had been wrong in denying miracles and who now believed that the reason that G'd had led the people through the desert had been in order to demonstrate His ability to perform miracles on a regular basis, would be healed.

116) G'd wanted to demonstrate the power of true penitence. Our sages in Yuma 86 have said that if someone is a truly penitent person even his former sins will be accounted as merits for him, i.e. not only will he have his sins forgiven but they will be turned into meritorious deeds. In our situation a person who had been bitten and who looked up at the copper snake observed that the very symbol of death, the snake, now kept silent although by definition every kind of snake is guilty of voicing slander. The fact that this very snake now had turned into a life-giving force rather than the reverse taught the repentant sinner this valuable lesson about the power of repentance.

127) G'd wanted that every individual Jew experience His miracles as something which had happened to him personally. This occurred when the person who had been bitten experienced the cure by looking up at the copper snake.

13והיה כל הנשוך, it would be that everyone who had been bitten, etc. When the Torah here used the word והיה which denotes something joyous rather than the word ויהי which suggests something sad, this was to show the positive effect of having been bitten. A person who had to look up at the copper snake because he had been bitten learned seven lessons in faith. This was certainly a joyous experience for him. The reason the Torah wrote כל הנשוך, "everyone who had been bitten" without adding the word "by a snake," is that even people, who had sustained snake bites before the snakes had proliferated and Moses had made the copper snake as a result of the people's slanderous remarks, were healed also if they looked up at the copper snake. The reason the Torah added the conjunctive letter ו at the beginning of the word וחי was to inform us that looking up at the copper snake also cured those people who had been bitten by a שרף by the kind of snake that burned their souls.