Context No. 3134 of 4322 · Wisdom

Wisdom 16:1-16: in context

1For this cause, they were deservedly punished through creatures like those which they worship, and tormented through a multitude of vermin. 2Instead of this punishment, you, giving benefits to your people, prepared quails for food, a delicacy to satisfy the desire of their appetite, 3to the end that your enemies, desiring food, might for the hideousness of the creatures sent among them, loathe even the necessary appetite; but these, your people, having for a short time suffered lack, might even partake of delicacies. 4For it was necessary that inescapable lack should come upon those oppressors, but that to these it should only be showed how their enemies were tormented. 5For even when terrible raging of wild beasts came upon your people, and they were perishing by the bites of crooked serpents, your wrath didn’t continue to the uttermost; 6but for admonition were they troubled for a short time, having a token of salvation to put them in remembrance of the commandment of your law; 7for he who turned toward it was not saved because of that which was seen, but because of you, the Savior of all. 8Yes, and in this you persuaded our enemies that you are he who delivers out of every evil. 9For the bites of locusts and flies truly killed them. No healing for their life was found, because they were worthy to be punished by such things. 10But your children weren’t overcome by the very fangs of venomous dragons, for your mercy passed by where they were and healed them. 11For they were bitten to put them in remembrance of your oracles, and were quickly saved, lest, falling into deep forgetfulness, they should become unable to respond to your kindness. 12For truly it was neither herb nor poultice that cured them, but your word, O Lord, which heals all people. 13For you have authority over life and death, and you lead down to the gates of Hades, and lead up again. 14But though a man kills by his wickedness, he can’t retrieve the spirit that has departed or release the imprisoned soul. 15But it is not possible to escape your hand; 16for ungodly men, refusing to know you, were scourged in the strength of your arm, pursued with strange rains and hails and relentless storms, and utterly consumed with fire.

The Wisdom of Solomon contrasts God's dealings with Egypt and with Israel. Where Egypt was tormented by creatures, Israel was given quail; and when serpents bit Israel in the wilderness, the writer insists they were bitten only as a brief reminder, and healed again. And he draws a careful conclusion: the one who turned toward the bronze serpent was not saved by the thing he saw, but by you, the Savior of all.

The passage reads the bronze serpent story deeply. When Israel looked at the bronze serpent and lived, they were not healed by the object itself but by God, the Savior of all; the serpent was only a sign pointing to him. It was neither herb nor poultice but your word, O Lord, that heals. This guards against the ever-present temptation to trust the sign rather than the God behind it. And it points forward, for Jesus said he would be lifted up like that serpent, so that whoever looks to him in faith might live, healed not by a thing but by the Savior himself.

Do I trust the outward signs and means rather than the God behind them, and do I look to the lifted-up Savior who alone heals?

Sources

Wisdom 16:7: "For he who turned toward it was not saved because of that which was seen, but because of you, the Savior of all."
Numbers 21:8: "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole. Everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live."
John 3:14: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up."