Why did Moses raise the brass serpent in the wilderness?

Question

I would like to know the meaning for God's command to Moses to lift a serpent of brass and set it on a pole in the desert, so that all those who had been bitten by serpents would look at the brass serpent on the pole, be cured and live.

Answer 1

The Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 3:8, cited in Rashi to this verse) states:

"Does a snake kill or make live? But rather, this tells us that as long as the Jews looked upward and subjugated their hearts to their Father in Heaven - they would be cured; if not, they would decline."

Ibn Ezra comments that we can't know why G-d specifically told Moshe to make a figure of a snake rather than something else; it was a Divine command beyond our understanding.

Nonetheless, other commentaries do offer possible reasons:

• It demonstrates G-d's power: the same snake that He gave the power to kill people with its venom, is the same one whose depiction will be the instrument of their healing. (Daas Zekeinim; Ramban)

• It would remind the Jewish People of the sin they committed by speaking slanderously of G-d and of Moshe (the snake is a symbol of slander, as in the episode of the Tree of Knowledge, where he falsely claimed that G-d didn't want Adam and Chavah to eat from it because He didn't want competition - Gen. 3:6), so that they would repent properly. (Sforno; Ohr Hachayim, who also provides seven other benefits that they'd get from looking at this copper snake and considering its implied message)

• It would remind them of the instrument by which they had already been punished. This is similar to a father who once had to beat his child, who afterwards hangs the rod on a wall as a reminder to his son to not repeat the act that led to its use. (Baal Haturim)

- and I'm sure there are many other possibilities that have been offered, since the Torah's "measure is longer than the earth, and wider than the very ocean" (Job 11:9).