Typology: Part 6 Complex Imagery
Typology can be a useful tool to unpack the more complex and strange stories in the Bible.
Moses, the Serpent and the Cross
In my opinion, this is one of the weirdest stories. There are many interpretations, but I’ve never found any of them seem to accurately describe what’s going on. I might write a seven part series on this story alone as there is much here to discuss.
Numbers 21 v 4-9
But the people grew impatient on the journey and spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you led us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!”
So the LORD sent venomous snakes among the people, and many of the Israelites were bitten and died. Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you. Intercede with the LORD so He will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. If anyone who was bitten looked at the bronze snake, he would live.
Jesus directly alludes to this verse in John 3.
John 3 v 14
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.
Christ is the typological serpent on the pole. This immediately jars with me. How can Jesus be like the serpent? After all, the Serpent deceives Eve in the Garden. But typologically speaking, Christ is the opposite type of the Serpent. He doesn’t deceive, but tells the truth.
This story goes even deeper. In Hebrew, the word for the poisonous snakes which attack the Israelites is ‘nachash’. This is the same word for the Serpent in the Garden.
The serpent on the pole, in Hebrew, is ‘saraph’. This is a different to the snakes on the ground. The word ‘saraph’ appears only 7 times in the Bible. In Isaiah 6, it is translated as seraphim, God’s throne guardians.
Typologically, the snakes on the ground link with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. But the snake on the pole links in with the archangels. Another term for archangels in the Old Testament is the phrase ‘sons of God’.
So Christ is comparing Himself with the ‘saraph’, the ‘sons of God’. Saying He will be lifted up, like the Son of God, and all who look to Him will be saved from the Serpent.
Elisha and the She-Bears
Here is another strange story. Elisha calls down a curse on some boys who taunted him about his lack of hair.
2 Kings 2 v 23-25
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.
Elisha was heading to Bethel, the House of God (which is a type of Garden of Eden).
Typologically, we can then link the prophet’s baldness to the shame Adam and Eve experienced when they realised they were naked. The young men were shaming Elisha.
Elisha brings down a curse, but not from himself but from the Name of the Lord. This links with the curses God declares over Adam and Eve.
If this story is closely linked to the Eden narrative, I suggest the two bears are, typologically, the angel and the flaming sword who guard the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve leave.
Finally, Elisha goes to Mount Carmel instead of Bethel. Mount Carmel is where Elijah saw God defeat the Prophets of Baal. Typologically, this links the story to the destruction of God’s enemies.
Paul’s Boring Preach
In Acts 20, Paul is preaching. Luke says he was talking late into the evening. A young man falls asleep and then proceeds to drop out of a 3rd storey window. He died. Paul goes downstairs and throws himself on the young man’s dead body and he is revived.
Typologically, this story is linked to Elijah, who throws himself on the dead body of the Widow’s son. The boy is revived. Luke is saying that Paul is a type of Elijah.
Prior to this incident, Elijah prophesies that the flour and oil will never run out, much like Paul’s long preaching.
This gives a deeper meaning to an apparently embarrassing story.
In the next post we will look at the pitfalls of using typology.