Yahweh sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died.
Parallel Translations
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Yahweh sent venomous snakes among the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died.
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And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
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And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
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Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Numbers 21:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Corinthians 10:9 Let’s not test Christ, as some of them tested, and perished by the serpents.
- Jeremiah 8:17 “For, behold, I will send serpents, adders among you, which will not be charmed; and they will bite you,” says Yahweh.
- Deuteronomy 8:15 who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water; who poured water for you out of the rock of flint;
- Amos 9:3-4 Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them. Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good.
- Isaiah 30:6 The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people.
- Isaiah 14:29 Don’t rejoice, O Philistia, all of you, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the serpent’s root an adder will emerge, and his fruit will be a fiery flying serpent.
- Genesis 3:14-15 Yahweh God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain For they that were stung therewith, were so inflamed…
For they that were stung therewith, were so inflamed with the heat thereof, that they died.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Num 21:6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among…
Num 21:6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
Ver. 6. Fiery serpents.] Heb., Seraphim; from their burning heat, whereby these ungrateful Israelites, that causelessly cried out of thirst, had somewhat given them to cry for. Their tongues, so full of deadly poison, and set on fire from hell, are now parched and scorched with venomous heat and torments, the likest hell of any other. These serpents are here called seraphims: that old serpent the devil can transform himself into an angel of light.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Such there were many in this wilderness, Deu 8:15,…
Such there were many in this wilderness, Deu 8:15, which having been hitherto restrained by God, are now let loose and sent among them. They are called fiery from their effects, because their poison caused an intolerable heat, and burning, and thirst in the bodies of the Israelites, which was aggravated with this circumstance of the place, that here was no water, Num 21:5.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people,....…
And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people,.... Of which there were great numbers in the deserts of Arabia, and about the Red sea; but hitherto the Israelites were protected from them by the cloud about them, but sinning, the Lord suffered them to come among them, to punish them; these are called fiery, either from their colour, for in Arabia, as there were serpents of a golden colour, as Aelianus (r) relates, to which the brazen serpent, after made, bore some likeness, so there were others in the same parts of Arabia of a red or scarlet colour, as Diodorus Siculus says (s), of a span long, and their bite entirely incurable; or else they are so called from the effect of them, exciting heat and thirst in those they bit; so Jarchi says, they are so called because they burn with the poison of their teeth: these, very probably, were flying ones, as may seem from Isa 14:29 and being sent of God, might come flying among the people and bite them; and such there were in the fenny and marshy parts of Arabia, of which many writers speak (t), as flying from those parts into Egypt, where they used to be met by a bird called Ibis, which killed them, and for that reason was had in great veneration by the Egyptians; and Herodotus (u) says they are nowhere but in Arabia, and also (w) that they of that kind of serpents, which are called Hydri, their wings are not feathered, but like the wings of bats, and this Bochart (x) takes to be here meant:
and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died; for, as before related from Diodorus Siculus, their bites were altogether incurable; and Solinus (y) says, of the same Arabian flying serpents, that their poison is so quick, that death follows before the pain can be felt; and of that kind of serpent, the Hydrus, it is said by Leo Africanus (z), that their poison is most pernicious, and that there is no other remedy against the bite of them, but to cut off that part of the member bitten, before the poison can penetrate into the other parts of the body: the Dipsas, another kind of serpent, which others are of opinion is designed, by biting, brings immediately a thirst on persons, intolerable and almost not extinguishable, and a deadly one, unless help is most speedily had; and if this was the case here it was very bad indeed, since there was no water: Solinus (a) says, this kind of serpent kills with thirst; Aristotle (b) speaks of a serpent some call the sacred one, and that whatsoever it bites putrefies immediately all around it: these serpents, and their bites, may be emblems of the old serpent the devil, and of his fiery darts, and of sin brought in by him, and which he tempts unto, the effects of which are terrible and deadly, unless prevented by the grace of God.
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(r) De Animal. l. 10. c. 13. (s) Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 180. (t) Herodot. Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 15. Aelian. de Animal. l. 2. c. 38. Mela, l. 3. c. 9. Solin. Polyhistor, c. 45. & alii. (u) Thalia, sive, l. 3. c. 109. (w) Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 76. (x) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 3. c. 13. col. 423. (y) Polyhist. c. 45. (z) Apud Scheuchzer, Physic. Sacr. vol. 2. p. 386. (a) Polyhist. c. 40. (b) Hist. Animal. l. 8. c. 29.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Fiery serpents - There were many such in this…
Fiery serpents - There were many such in this wilderness, which having been hitherto restrained by God, are now let loose and sent among them. They are called fiery from their effects, because their poison caused an intolerable heat and burning and thirst, which was aggravated with this circumstance of the place, that here was no water, ver. 5.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. Fiery serpents] הנחשים השרפים hannechashim hasseraphim. I…
Verse 6. Fiery serpents] הנחשים השרפים hannechashim hasseraphim. I have observed before, on Ge 3:1, that it is difficult to assign a name to the creature termed in Hebrew nachash; it has different significations, but its meaning here and in Ge 3:1 is most difficult to be ascertained. Seraphim is one of the orders of angelic beings, Isa 6:2; Isa 6:6; but as it comes from the root שרף saraph, which signifies to burn, it has been translated fiery in the text. It is likely that St. Paul alludes to the seraphim, Heb 1:7: Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a FLAME of FIRE. The animals mentioned here by Moses may have been called fiery because of the heat, violent inflammation, and thirst, occasioned by their bite; and consequently, if serpents, they were of the prester or dipsas species, whose bite, especially that of the former, occasioned a violent inflammation through the whole body, and a fiery appearance of the countenance. The poet Lucan has well expressed this terrible effect of the bite of the prester, and also of the dipsas, in the ninth book of his Pharsalia, which, for the sake of those who may not have the work at hand, I shall here insert.
Of the mortal effects of the bite of the dipsas in the deserts of Libya he gives the following description: -
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"Signiferum juvenem Tyrrheni sanguinis Aulum
Torta caput retro dipsas calcata momordit.
Vix dolor aut sensus dentis fuit: ipsaque laeti
Frons caret invidia: nec quidquam plaga minatur.
Ecce subit virus tacitum, carpitque medullas
Ignis edax, calidaque incendit viscera tabe.
Ebibit humorem circum vitalia fusum
Pestis, et in sicco linguam torrere palato
Coepit: defessos iret qui sudor in artus
Non fuit, atque oculos lacrymarum vena refugit."
Aulus, a noble youth of Tyrrhene blood,
Who bore the standard, on a dipsas trod;
Backward the wrathful serpent bent her head,
And, fell with rage, the unheeded wrong repaid.
Scarce did some little mark of hurt remain,
And scarce he found some little sense of pain.
Nor could he yet the danger doubt, nor fear
That death with all its terrors threatened there.
When lo! unseen, the secret venom spreads,
And every nobler part at once invades;
Swift flames consume the marrow and the brain,
And the scorched entrails rage with burning pain;
Upon his heart the thirsty poisons prey,
And drain the sacred juice of life away.
No kindly floods of moisture bathe his tongue,
But cleaving to the parched roof it hung;
No trickling drops distil, no dewy sweat,
To ease his weary limbs, and cool the raging heat.
Rowe.
The effects of the bite of the prester are not less terrible:
"Nasidium Marsi cultorem torridus agri
Percussit prester: illi rubor igneus ora
Succendit, tenditque cutem, pereunte figura,
Miscens cuncta tumor toto jam corpore major:
Humanumque egressa modum super omnia membra
Effiatur sanies, late tollente veneno."
A fate of different kind Nasidius found,
A burning prester gave the deadly wound;
And straight, a sudden flame began to spread,
And paint his visage with a glowing red.
With swift expansion swells the bloated skin.
Naught but an undistinguished mass is seen;
While the fair human form lies lost within.
The puffy poison spreads, and leaves around,
Till all the man is in the monster drowned.
Rowe.
Bochart supposes that the hydrus or chersydrus is meant; a serpent that lives in marshy places, the bite of which produces the most terrible inflammations, burning heat, fetid vomitings, and a putrid solution of the whole body. See his works, vol. iii., col. 421. It is more likely to have been a serpent of the prester or dipsas kind, as the wilderness through which the Israelites passed did neither afford rivers nor marshes, though Bochart endeavors to prove that there might have been marshes in that part; but his arguments have very little weight. Nor is there need of a water serpent as long as the prester or dipsas, which abound in the deserts of Libya, might have abounded in the deserts of Arabia also. But very probably the serpents themselves were immediately sent by God for the chastisement of this rebellious people. The cure was certainly preternatural; this no person doubts; and why might not the agent be so, that inflicted the disease?
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Num 21:6. Fiery serpents — Hebrew, נחשׁים, nechashim, the…
Num 21:6. Fiery serpents — Hebrew, נחשׁים, nechashim, the plural of the word translated serpent, Gen 3:1, where Moses speaks of the temptation and fall of our first parents, and which, when intended of a living creature, we believe, always means a serpent of one species or other, and is accordingly uniformly so rendered, not only by our translators, in the Scriptures, but by the Seventy, and in most or all other versions whatever; and, what certainly ought to have great weight with Christians, by the evangelists and apostles, whenever they quote or refer to those passages of the Old Testament where the word occurs: see on Gen 3:1. There were many such serpents as Moses here speaks of in this wilderness, which, having been hitherto restrained by God, were now let loose and sent among them: see Jer 8:17. They are called fiery from their effects, because their poison caused an intolerable heat, burning, and thirst, which was aggravated with this circumstance of the place, that there was no water, Num 21:5.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Fiery serpents - The epithet Deu 8:15; Isa 14:29;…
Fiery serpents - The epithet Deu 8:15; Isa 14:29; Isa 30:6 denotes the inflammatory effect of their bite. The peninsula of Sinai, and not least, the Arabah, abounds in mottled snakes of large size, marked with fiery red spots and wavy stripes, which belong to the most poisonous species, as the formation of the teeth clearly show.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Fiery serpents. They are so called, because they that…
Fiery serpents. They are so called, because they that were bitten by them were burnt with a violent heat. (Challoner) --- Hence they are called seraphim, by which name an order of angels are known. The Egyptians adored a serpent which they called serapis, at Rome; and they represented their god serapis, with a serpent entwining a monstrous figure, composed of a lion, a dog, and a wolf. (Macrobius, Saturn i. 20.) The seraph was a winged serpent, Isaias xiv. 29. xxx. 6. Such often infested Egypt, in spring, coming from Arabia, unless they were intercepted by the ibis. Their wings resembled those of bats. (Herodotus, ii. 76.; Mela, &c.) God probably sent some of this description into the camp of the Israelites. (Calmet) --- Some call them prœster, (Pliny, [Natural History?] xxiv. 13,) from their burning; others the hydra, or, when out of water, the chershydra, the venom of which is most dangerous. The Septuagint style them simply, "the destroying, or deadly serpents." See Bochart, T. ii. B. iii. 13.; Deuteronomy viii. 15.; Wisdom xvi. 5, 10.) (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people--That part…
The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people--That part of the desert where the Israelites now were--near the head of the gulf of Akaba--is greatly infested with venomous reptiles, of various kinds, particularly lizards, which raise themselves in the air and swing themselves from branches; and scorpions, which, being in the habit of lying in long grass, are particularly dangerous to the barelegged, sandaled people of the East. The only known remedy consists in sucking the wound, or, in the case of cattle, in the application of ammonia. The exact species of serpents that caused so great mortality among the Israelites cannot be ascertained. They are said to have been "fiery," an epithet applied to them either from their bright, vivid color, or the violent inflammation their bite occasioned.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain FIERY SERPENTS AND THE BRAZEN SERPENT, Num_21:6-9.
FIERY SERPENTS AND THE BRAZEN SERPENT, Num_21:6-9.
Though human probation is not the theatre for the display of exact justice in the punishment of sin and the reward of obedience, yet we see in divine providence the intimations and outlines of a perfect future state, so that no man can have any reasonable ground for doubting that God smiles upon righteousness and frowns upon iniquity. Hence his frequent interpositions by the infliction of suffering upon the wicked are rather educational and disciplinary than penal. Hence natural evil is merciful, inasmuch as it is designed to deter from that eternal punishment which awaits incorrigible sinners.
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6. The Lord sent fiery serpents — The Alexandrine Septuagint renders “fiery” by θανατουντες, deadly. Popularly this “serpent” is erroneously identified with the fiery flying serpent of Isa_14:29; Isa_30:6. As all the plagues of Egypt were the intensification of natural evils, so we may suppose that these serpents existed in the region of the camp, and were gathered to this place to afflict the murmuring Israelites. They are called fiery because of the inflammation resulting from their poisonous bite. The Greeks have three different names for snakes, derived from verbs signifying to burn. These serpents may have had a fiery appearance also. Schubert saw in that vicinity a very mottled snake of a
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large size, marked with fiery red spots, which belonged to the most poisonous species, and he was told by the Bedouins that they were very common there. The region east and south of Mount Seir still abounds in venomous reptiles, especially lizards, which raise themselves in the air and swing from shrubs, and scorpions lying in ambush in the grass, which sting the barelegged, sandalled natives. It is not possible to point out the species of deadly serpents which afflicted Israel. According to Niebuhr, there is in the Arabian desert a small, slender species called baetan, spotted black and white, whose bite is instant death causing the body to swell in an extraordinary manner. The cerastes is another venomous species frequenting Arabia.
Much people… died — With these few words before us, it needs no very strong imagination to portray the magnitude of this calamity and the intensity of the suffering. The agonies of the bitten, the vain attempts to heal, the groans of the dying, the burial of the dead, the torturing terrors of the living, in momentary dread of the fatal wound, all come vividly before our minds. We are prepared for the penitence expressed in the next verse.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. fiery serpents] The Heb. words are both substantives,…
6. fiery serpents] The Heb. words are both substantives, and both have the article: ‘the serpents, the fiery creatures.’ If ‘fiery’ is the correct rendering, it probably refers to their venomous bite which produced a burning inflammation. The article may imply ‘the serpents so well known to the readers by tradition.’ The punishment by serpents is referred to in 1Co_10:9 as a warning to Christians.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (6) And the Lord sent fiery serpents . .…
(6) And the Lord sent fiery serpents . . . —Hebrew, the serpents, the seraphim (i.e., the burning ones). (See Deu_8:15; Isa_14:29; Isa_30:6.) The word appears to denote a particular kind of serpent, as in the following verse. Some think that they were so called because of the bright fiery red upon their heads; others because of the blazing sunbeams on their scales; and others because of their inflammatory and poisonous bite. Venomous snakes are said to abound still in the Arabah.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Fiery serpents, Nachash is the ordinary word for serpent.…
Fiery serpents, Nachash is the ordinary word for serpent. The word saraph which seems to mean "burning one," stands (by itself) for a serpent in verse 8, and also in Isa_14:29 Isa_30:6. In Isa_6:2, 6 it stands for one of the symbolic beings (seraphim) of the prophet"s vision. The only idea common to the two meanings (otherwise so distinct) must be that of brilliance and metallic luster. It is commonly assumed that the "fiery" serpents were so called because of the burning pain and inflammation caused by the bite, after the analogy of the prhsthrev and kauswnev of Dioscorus and Aelian. But is hardly possible that Isaiah should have used the same word in such wholly dissimilar senses, and it is clear from comparison with Ezekiel"s vision of the cherubim (Eze_1:7) that the saraph of Isa_6:2 was so called from the burnished luster of his appearance. Even our Lord himself is described in the Apocalypse as having in the highest degree this appearance of glowing brass. (Rev_1:15 Rev_2:18) It is further clear that the saraph was so named from his colour, not his venom, because when Moses was ordered to make a saraph he made a serpent of brass (or rather copper), with the evident intent of imitating as closely as possible the appearance of the venomous reptile. We may conclude then with some confidence that these serpents were of a fiery red colour, resembling in this respect certain very deadly snakes in Australia, which are known as "copper snakes." Travelers speak of some such pests as still abounding in the region of the Arabah, but it is quite uncertain whether the fiery serpents of that special visitation can be identified with any existing species.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 we have spoken against Yahweh and you
we have spoken against Yahweh and you
"we have said bad things about Yahweh and you"
Read full note →
we have spoken ... from us
The words "we" and "us" here refer to the people but not to Moses. (See: Exclusive and Inclusive "We")
translationWords
serpent
sin
pray
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 21:6 This whole region provided (and still provides) habitat…
21:6 This whole region provided (and still provides) habitat for extremely poisonous snakes (cp. Isa 30:6).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.