Fiery Serpents

[Num. 21:6] And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
Fiery serpents - Nehushtin the bronze serpent to offer incense to. That part of the desert where the Israelites now were - near the head of the gulf of Akaba - is greatly infested with venomous reptiles, of various kinds, particularly lizards, which raise themselves in the air and swing themselves from branches; and scorpions, which, being in the habit of lying in long grass, are particularly dangerous to the barelegged, sandaled people of the East. The only known remedy consists in sucking the wound, or, in the case of cattle, in the application of ammonia. The exact species of serpents that caused so great mortality among the Israelites cannot be ascertained. They are said to have been "fiery," an epithet applied to them either from their bright, vivid color, or the violent inflammation their bite occasioned.
Travellers tell us that this very district is still infested by poisonous snakes of large size, marked with fiery red spots and wavy stripes. When the people confessed their iniquity and entreated Moses to intercede, he was commanded by G-d to make a serpent of brass and to raise it upon a pole. “And it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it – shall live.
This is a picture of salvation that men were to find in Himself. The power to save did not lie in the serpent of brass but at the cross of Calvary were the Son of Man hung there for us. The poison of sin is working death in man’s experience today. The divinely appointed remedy was a serpent of brass lifted up, harmless, but bearing the image of that which wrought the woe. “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin: that we might be made the righteousness of G-d in Him.” 2 Cor. V.21.
The bitten Israelites were not merely healed by looking at the serpent they received life. Bitten – they were as good as dead; death was already working in them; and every one that looked – lived.
Every godly child who has looked to Y’Shua as his or her Savior has received eternal life from Him withered young, old, ignorant and learned, rich and poor, people of every clime and in every imaginable outward condition of life, who have all had this one circumstance in common – that when they came as lost sinners to the Savior the same result happened with each, they became new creatures in Y’Shua HaMashiach.
The severity of the scourge and the appalling extent of mortality brought them to a sense of sin, and through the intercessions of Moses, which they implored, they were miraculously healed. He was directed to make the figure of a serpent in brass, to be elevated on a pole or standard, that it might be seen at the extremities of the camp and that every bitten Israelite who looked to it might be healed. This peculiar method of cure was designed, in the first instance, to show that it was the efficacy of G-d's power and grace, not the effect of nature or art, and also that it might be a type of the power of faith in Messiah to heal all who look to Him because of their sins (John 3:14-15; and 2 Kg. 18:4).
Fiery serpents their poison caused an intolerable heat and burning and thirst, which was aggravated with this circumstance of the place, that here was no water, 21:5. It was the figure of a serpent in brass, which is of a fiery color. This would require some time: G-d would not speedily take off the judgment, because he saw they were not thoroughly humbled.
Upon a pole that the people might see it from all parts of the camp, and therefore the pole must be high, and the serpent large.
When he looketh this method of cure was prescribed, that it might appear to be G-ds own work, and not the effect of nature or art: and that it might be an eminent type of our salvation by Messiah. The serpent signified Messiah, who was in the likeness of sinful flesh, though without sin, as this brazen serpent had the outward shape, but not the inward poison, of the other serpents: the pole resembled the cross upon which Y’Shua was lifted up for our salvation: and looking up to it designed our believing in Messiah.
As long as the Israelites directed their thoughts on high and kept their hearts in subjection to their Father in heaven, they were healed; otherwise they wasted away.
Serpent of brass - bronze serpent verses Messiah; made sin for us.
Lived - he was delivered from death, and cured of his disease.