August 16, 2010 Lesson 15 of Numbers 21. Conquest of the Amorite Kings

Israel’s reaction to adversity gets a little monotonous (v5), and it’s easy to say, ‘Why cannot they learn to trust God?’ But are not we often as unbelieving? Notice how Jesus uses this story (v6-9) as a ‘type’ in John 3:14, 15. What parallels are there in condition of the afflicted and in the means of salvation in each case? Why a serpent on the pole? Cf. 2 Cor 5:21. Answer: I am not sure why Israel could not learn to have faith in God. However, we do just the same. I am not sure why. Maybe it is as Paul says in Romans 7: 15 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our LORD! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” I know that I have heard others talk of the snake on the pole and it being a ‘type’. However, I don’t recall, and can’t find, what that is right now.


It is worth tracing Israel’s journey on a map from 20:1 onwards. Notice how circuitous it was. What evidence is there, as against 20:2,3 and 21:4, 5, that Israel was learning trust and obedience through discipline? What discipline? Cf. Deut 8:2. Answer: Israel was, I believe being disciplined for their unbelief, I am not sure how it tells us here that they are really learning anything. Each time they are “disgruntled” and then God sends in the punishment.