When Israel's people fell away

When Israel's people fell away, complaining and aggrieved,

They begged for Moses then to pray their suffering be relieved.

Like all the serpents on the ground whose poisonous bite did kill,

He made a serpent out of bronze according to God's will.

 

Then Moses placed that snake of bronze upon a pole on high,

So those who suffered serpent-bite could see it and not die.

As Moses lifted up that snake out in the wilderness,

So was the Son of Man raised up, the Son of Righteousness.

 

God loved this fallen world so much his only Son he gave,

So those who followed would not die, but they the Lord would save.

God did not send his Son to earth to punish or condemn,

But so the world in all its fullness might be saved through him.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2024, after Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-17.

MUSIC: Tune KINGSFOLD, English Country Songs, 1893; harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906.

 

 

So in considering the passage from John I wasn't optimistic about finding a way to a hymn text, but somehow the idea of dipping into the Numbers reading seemed to provide a "running start" to developing the fuller hymn. I never expected to find a way to set verse 16, but there it is.