Numbers — Chapter 21

The people murmur again: \"Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread and no water, and our soul loathes this very light food (manna).\" New murmuring, new punishment — the eighth general murmuring of Israel in the desert.

God sends fiery serpents (seraphim); their bite causes such heat that the bitten feel as if burning. The punishment fits the crime: murmurers \"sharpen their tongues like a serpent\" (Ps 57), and so a serpent is made their executioner.

God commands Moses to make a bronze serpent and raise it on a standard; whoever looked at it was healed — not by any natural virtue in the bronze, but by a miraculous divine act. The bronze serpent was \"a sign and moral instrument of this cure.\"

Allegorical/typological: the serpent of bronze raised on wood signifies Christ raised on the Cross in the form of a condemned sinner but without sin; by gazing upon Him with faith and contrition we are healed of the deadly bites of sin.

God shows the thirsty people a well; the princes dig it with their staves and Israel sings: \"Spring up, O well! Sing ye to it.\" A canticle of joy for divine providence; the well signifies the Law and wisdom given through Moses, the \"giver of the law.\"