The fiery serpents reference in the Nic story: Part 1 ~ FIERY SERPENTS -- seraphs? Makes you go...hmmmmmm








Num 21:6



And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. NAS

Num 21:7-9
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery (OT:8314) serpent , and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live." 9 And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. NAS


OT:8314 saraph (saw-rawf'); from OT:8313; burning, i.e. (figuratively) poisonous (serpent); specifically, a saraph or symbolical creature (from their copper color):
KJV - fiery (serpent), seraph.
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)


Isa 6:1-3
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs (OT:83140) each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;the whole earth is full of his glory." NIV




Ok, I know it is hard to tell from this auspicious beginning, but this is a continuation of the Nicodemus comes to see Jesus blogs. (FINALLY! and yes, you are welcome, Erica!)




OK...so here is my thought I noticed these things when I was looking up this scripture as I studied the Nic story:


~ God sent "fiery serpents"

~ the word for "fiery" (as in fiery serpent)
and the word for sereph
-- usually translated angel --
is the same

~ serpents and flames make the same motion




and I asked myself, "are angels 'made of' ' flame?" I began to think of things like the Elisha gets attacked by the Arameans story, where Elisha can see, (and his servant gets to see) "hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." NIV 2 Kings 6:17e And of course the chariot of fire pulled by the horse of fire that separates Elijah from Elisha when Elijah is about to be taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. And then I wondered if that is the reason Satan chose the form of a snake when he tempted Eve and Adam in the garden...is it a natural 'cross-over' : flame = serpent? So....were these sereph snakes ... (dun dun dun...) angels?




Makes you go ... hmmmmmm.

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