Numbers 21:6 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

There is a striking connection between the sin and the punishment. The people murmured for want of water; and here the LORD sent them a thirst which no water could satisfy. It should be observed that those fiery flying serpents were nothing new; the wilderness was full of them. So Moses tells us: Deuteronomy 8:15. But it should seem, that by the divine interposition, never before this had they annoyed the LORD'S Israel. Reader, do not forget that it is sin which hath thrown down the sovereignty of man over the inferior creatures. Genesis 1:25, compared with Genesis 3:17-19. But we must not stop here, in our view of this subject, the LORD JESUS hath given us so sweet and precious a comment upon this part of Israel's history, that I venture to persuade myself the Reader will not be disposed to pass it over too hastily. Reader! I would beg you to remark with me somewhat more particularly, the striking affinity in this case of Israel of old, to the Israel of GOD in all ages. The people were bitten with fiery serpents, of which many died. And what is sin in all its various shapes, but the venomous bite and poison of that old serpent the devil. So he is called. Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2. As a serpent he appeared to our first mother. Genesis 3:1. And his darts are called fiery darts. Ephesians 6:16. And what are the effects of his deceptions, but death, temporal death: for sin hath entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death hath passed upon all men because that all have sinned: Romans 5:12. Spiritual death: for unless quickened by the LORD, all are by nature dead in trespasses and sins: Ephesians 2:1. And eternal death; for the separation both of soul and body from GOD, which is the sure consequence to those who live and die unawakened and unregenerated in time, is the eternal death of the miserable forever. And all these are the effects of the serpent's fiery darts, like the bite of the serpent in the wilderness.