Numbers 21:6

6. 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.

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown, 1871 · public domain

Verse 6 Fiery serpents - הנחשים השרפים hannechashim hasseraphim. I have observed before, on Gen. iii., 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 Gen. iii. 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: - "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, 1831 · public domain