Fiery Serpent
by Ginger Repke
Title
Fiery Serpent
Artist
Ginger Repke
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Symbolic fiery serpent sculpture at Mount Nebo in Jordan. Many things to observe about this symbolic piece located where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land. The obvious connection to medical symbolism and the healing documented in Numbers. What to the photographer is most interesting; the dichotomy between the Genesis account of the fall of man based on serpent trickery vs. the Exodus account of healing as well as the power and importance given to serpent/snake as the first sign to Egypt that Moses was God's representative. Then there is a theological debate about the word translation in the Genesis creation account where depending on the translationthat the serpent/snake is possibly one of the first few creatures created by God. Some references below from KJV. For the theological debate have a look at my Jewish learning and other resources. Then lastly we have a part of 2 Kings where people were worshiping the snake staff from Exodus which gained a new name Nehushtan and therefore was destroyed as it was being used as an idol.
Exodus 4:2-5
And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.
Numbers 21:8-9
And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
2 Kings Chapter 18:4
He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
Uploaded
May 3rd, 2019
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