18 TIME-LIFE MIRACLES OF FAITH
APLAGUEOFSERPENTS
SNAKE
DANGER
Fraughtwithtrouble,theHebrews
receive help from aboveF
rom the moment the newborn Moses, float-
ing in the river Nile, is rescued by Pharaoh’s
daughter, his life seems to be a succession of
miracles. While the best-known of these is
God’s parting of the Red Sea, the extraordi-
nary interventions by God don’t stop there. In thedesert
wilderness, the miracles continue. God sustains the starv-
ing Hebrews with manna, a wondrous honey-wafer sub-
stance that floats down daily from the skies above.Still,
after three months of wandering, the people are weary, and
the Lord intervenes to give them hope.
The Book of Numbers chronicles this segment of their
spiritual and physical journey. Their suffering increases;
they fight battles and grow restless with Moses’s leader-
ship. They have lapses of faith. As a result, God condemns
the Hebrews to wander in the wild for 40 more years; the
promised “land flowing with milk and honey” will not be
delivered until the next generation.
As the Hebrews move from land to land, they come
to Edom, whose rulers refuse to let them pass. Impatient
with the journey’s hardships, the people criticize God and
Moses, demanding why they have been brought up out of
Egypt only “to die in the wilderness.” They fret, complain
of eating only manna, lose hope, and rebel.
Angered by their lack of faith, God unleashes a plague
of poisonous serpents. Realizing they have brought this
on themselves bycomplaining, the people implore Moses
to pray to God to remove the serpents. In reply, God says,
“Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and every-
one who is bitten shall look at it and live.” Moses follows
God’s command and the bitten Hebrewssurvive,continu-
ing on their journey toward the Promised Land with re-
newed faith. ▪OLD TESTAMENT