Cobra

Scripture references: Exodus 7:8–12; Numbers 21:6–9; Deuteronomy 32:33; Job 20:14; Psalm 58:4; 91:13; Proverbs 23:32; Isaiah 11:8; Romans 3:13

The confrontation in Pharaoh's court, Exodus 7:8–12, When YHWH commands Moses and Aaron to confront Pharaoh, the sign is given: Aaron throws down his staff and it becomes a serpent (nachash, נָחָשׁ). Pharaoh's wise men and sorcerers do the same. But Aaron's staff-serpent swallows theirs. The cobra of Egypt, the same creature depicted on the pharaonic crown (the uraeus) as a symbol of royal power and divine protection, is overcome by YHWH's sign. The very creature that Egypt made sacred to its power is used against Egypt.

The bronze serpent, Numbers 21:6–9, When Israel speaks against YHWH and Moses in the wilderness, YHWH sends fiery serpents (seraphim nachashim, שְׂרָפִים נְחָשִׁים) among the people who bite them. After Israel repents, YHWH commands Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole, "everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." Jesus references this in John 3:14: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." The serpent on the pole is the type of the crucifixion.

The viper's poison in the soul, Romans 3:13, Paul cites Psalm 140:3 in his indictment of human sinfulness: "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips." The asp's venom (ios aspidōn, ἰὸς ἀσπίδων), swift-acting, lethal, hidden in the creature's mouth, is the image of the sin that proceeds from the human throat. The cobra's poison becomes the metaphor for the poison of speech untethered from the fear of YHWH.

The messianic child at the cobra's den, Isaiah 11:8, The great peaceable kingdom passage ends with: "The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand into the adder's den." In the messianic age, the most lethal creature of the ancient Near East is made harmless before the most vulnerable human being, the infant. This is not a domestication of the cobra but a transformation of the cosmos, the reversal of the curse, the restoration of creation's peace.

The protection of Psalm 91, Psalm 91:13, "You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot." The adversarial power of the cobra is overcome by those who dwell in the shelter of the Most High. Satan quotes this psalm in the temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:6); Jesus does not refute the psalm's truth but refuses to test it artificially.

The cobra runs through Scripture from Pharaoh's court to the peaceable kingdom of Isaiah 11. It is the creature of Egypt's power overturned, the fiery serpent of judgment in the wilderness, the type of the crucified Christ in John 3, the image of sin's poison in Romans 3, and the harmless creature before the messianic infant. The Sanctum holds the cobra as one of the most theologically dense animals in all of Scripture.