A Bible Study based on Numbers 21:4-9 – The Bronze Snake –

Read Numbers 21:4-9

Locate on a map where Moses and the Israelites were at this time.

Draw a general time line for Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and determine roughly when this event took place.

Look at your map. Why did Moses decide to go around Edom? Wouldn’t it have been much easier to go straight through that country? (See also Numbers 20:14-21 and Deuteronomy 2:1-23)

Why did the people grow impatient on the way?

How does Satan tempt us to grow impatient with God?

How did the people show that they were impatient?

How does Satan use our impatience to lead us into other sins?

What makes their comments and their complaining so incredible?

Can you think of ways that we do the very same thing?

In response to their complaints, what did God do? Why?

Research the types of snakes that are common in this part of the world. Share what you find.

Instead of poisonous snakes, what might God use today to help people see their sin and to lead them to repentance.

What two things did Israel do after God sent these snakes into their camp?

The people asked Moses to ask God to remove the snakes from the camp. God did not remove the snakes from the camp but he did answer their prayer. How?

Did God tell Moses to make an idol?

What promise did God attach to this bronze snake that Moses put up on a pole?

Did this bronze snake save the people? Why did the people who looked at the snake live and not die?

Were the people worshipping the snake when they looked at it and lived?

What greater purpose did this bronze snake serve? (see John 3:14-16)

To summarize, we have been bitten with the snake bite of sin. Its venom is deadly – eternally deadly. Yet God saved us from this snake bite and its poison. How?