Numbers 21:8-9

21:8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous snake and set it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks ¹  at it, he will live.” 21:9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that if a snake had bitten someone, when he looked at the bronze snake he lived. ² 

John 3:14-15

3:14 Just as ³  Moses lifted up the serpent ⁴  in the wilderness, ⁵  so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ⁶  3:15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” ⁷ 

[21:8]  ¹ tn The word order is slightly different in Hebrew: “and it shall be anyone who is bitten when he looks at it he shall live.”

[21:9]  ² sn The image of the snake was to be a symbol of the curse that the Israelites were experiencing; by lifting the snake up on a pole Moses was indicating that the curse would be drawn away from the people – if they looked to it, which was a sign of faith. This symbol was later stored in the temple, until it became an object of worship and had to be removed (2 Kgs 18:4). Jesus, of course, alluded to it and used it as an illustration of his own mission. He would become the curse, and be lifted up, so that people who looked by faith to him would live (John 3:14). For further material, see D. J. Wiseman, “Flying Serpents,” TynBul 23 (1972): 108-10; and K. R. Joines, “The Bronze Serpent in the Israelite Cult,” JBL 87 (1968): 245-56.

[3:14]  ³ tn Grk “And just as.”

[3:14]  ⁴ sn Or the snake, referring to the bronze serpent mentioned in Num 21:9.

[3:14]  ⁵ sn An allusion to Num 21:5-9.

[3:14]  ⁶ sn So must the Son of Man be lifted up. This is ultimately a prediction of Jesus’ crucifixion. Nicodemus could not have understood this, but John’s readers, the audience to whom the Gospel is addressed, certainly could have (compare the wording of John 12:32). In John, being lifted up refers to one continuous action of ascent, beginning with the cross but ending at the right hand of the Father. Step 1 is Jesus’ death; step 2 is his resurrection; and step 3 is the ascension back to heaven. It is the upward swing of the “pendulum” which began with the incarnation, the descent of the Word become flesh from heaven to earth (cf. Paul in Phil 2:5-11). See also the note on the title Son of Man in 1:51.

[3:15]  ⁷ tn This is the first use of the term ζωὴν αἰώνιον (zwhn aiwnion) in the Gospel, although ζωή (zwh) in chap. 1 is to be understood in the same way without the qualifying αἰώνιος (aiwnios).