When the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the impatient and rebellious Israelites in the Sinai wilderness, Moses prayed for the people to be spared.
“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” (Numbers 21:8–9).
New Testament writers saw in that event a type or similitude in anticipation of the Messiah:
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
“That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14–15; see also Helaman 8:13–15).
As Israel had looked to the serpent on a pole to live, so they were now encouraged to look to their Redeemer, who would be lifted up and live. The serpent was apparently a symbol of God.
From the very beginning, however, there was a perversion of the true symbol. Lucifer, or Satan, usurped the image to represent himself. “The great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” (Revelation 12:9; see also 20:2). “The serpent beguiled [deceived or tricked] Eve through his subtilty” (2 Corinthians 11:3).
Moses’ serpent on a pole was able to heal; and the Savior who was lifted up on the cross is able to heal. The serpent’s healing powers persisted in the mythologies of Near Eastern religions, even down to the Greco-Roman Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine. Healing or medical centers were established throughout the Roman Empire, for example the Asclepieum at Pergamum and the Asklepeion on the island of Cos, where Hippocrates practiced for many years. The symbol of Asclepius was a serpent wrapped around a pole. Serpent images used as symbols of deities are found in most ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures.11 Today the serpent wrapped around a pole is the symbol of the American Medical Association and other medical associations.
The parallel of the serpent with God penetrated other ancient cultures as well. For example, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, “Precious Serpent,” reputedly lived in Coatzacoalcos, which means “sanctuary of the serpent.” To ancient Mesoamericans, the serpent was associated with fertility, wisdom, and power.
So Moses is one of the greatest testators of the Messiah. He is famous for that unique type he raised up in the wilderness. To rescue his people he crafted the bronze serpent and lifted it up so the people could look upon it and avoid the deadly plague. It was easy to look (1 Nephi 17:41), so “many did look and live.”
“But,” Alma sadly commented, “few understood the meaning of those things, and this because of the hardness of their hearts… . There were many who were so hardened that they would not look, therefore they perished.” Imagine! A simple matter of glancing up to the symbol of the Savior, and they refused. Why? “Now the reason they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them.” There it is! It is exactly the same reason why many people stubbornly refuse to look to the Master Healer: they don’t really believe that he will heal them. They don’t believe that he is real, or that he lived and suffered for every one of us, or that he can heal them. If people will look to him, they can be healed and live (3 Nephi 9:13–14). He not only suffered for our sins but for our sicknesses. Through our faith in him, he can make us whole. Some of us refuse to look to him because we adopt the unbelieving attitude of Laman and Lemuel: “The Lord maketh no such thing known unto us” (1 Nephi 15:9)—or, in other words, he may heal others, but he wouldn’t heal us.
See also commentary at 1 Nephi 17:41–42.