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Article: Snake on a stick. (Living by the Word)(Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:13-21) (Column)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- March 2, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE ACCOUNT of the plague of snakes visited upon the Israelites on their wilderness journey does not cause us much discomfort. At least not the way T. E. Lawrence's memoirs raise the hair on our necks in describing a visit to "snake-devoted Sirban": "The valley seemed creeping with horned vipers and puff-adders, cobras and black snakes. By night movement was dangerous; and at last we found it necessary to walk with sticks, beating the bushes each side... A strange thing was the snake's habit, at night, of lying beside us, probably for warmth, under or on the blanket."
But the biblical plague of snakes does seem out of proportion to the crime. The people were only ...