Really? A Talking Snake? (Part 3)

In my last two posts about the serpent of Genesis 3, I covered the linguistic and biblical evidence that this was actually a divine (spiritual) being who sought to overthrow Yahweh’s plan to make the humans rulers over this new world He had created. In this post, I want to look at some ancient Near Eastern ideas that seem to give a little more clarity to this issue. I do this, not to affirm the truth of the beliefs of Pagan nations, but to show that the writers of the Bible would have had some cultural background to see spiritual beings as snake-like.

I think we need to start with an assumption, but one that I believe is entirely plausible. The Hebrews had just come out of slavery in Egypt. When Moses was putting together the original form of the Torah, it is likely that he would have drawn from images of Egyptian mythology in order to communicate theological truth to the people he was leading. These people would have needed to understand that their God, Yahweh (in contrast to the Egyptian gods), was the one true God and the one who made everything. It also seems to me that there is quite a bit of Mesopotamian imagery in these first chapters of the Bible as well (i.e., Babylonian, Sumerian, etc.). In order to understand the serpent in the Fall, I think we need to take both of these views into account.

I’m going to try really hard to keep this somewhat short, but there is a lot of information to cover. I want to start by showing that these ancient cultures viewed their gods (at least some of them) to be snakes or snake-like. In the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD), R.S. Hendel writes an article on the serpent. He says, “In Mesopotamian mythology and iconography the snake can be associated with a range of deities and demons.” He goes on to explain that in some Mesopotamian imagery, the symbol of the deity Ningishzida, the god of the underworld, is a venomous horned snake, and is also called a guardian of the gates of heaven in the Adapa myth.

There are also images of a god whose lower half is that of a serpent. This may represent the god Nirah, who is “chief minister to Ishtaran, the city-god of Der, on the border with Elam.” Hendel goes on to say that Nirah may be seen as a protective, or guardian, spirit because the image was found on boundary stones. In the mythology of ancient Mesopotamia, snakes were seen as both adversarial and protective. Hendel writes, “In these divine representations the image of the snake suggests associations with fear, danger, and death or with a protective power, depending on whether the snake is the emblem of an adversary or a benefactor.”

So, we see that in the mythology of Mesopotamian cultures there were references to serpents as deities, or closely associated with deities. The same can be seen in the myths of the Egyptians. Hendel explains, “The snake can appear in many roles: as an adversary or a protector, a deity or a demon, and can signify life and regeneration or death and nonexistence.” He gives several examples of this. He writes, “A venomous snake (the Uraeus serpent) protects kings and gods; the king has the snake as part of his being, and so is immune to snake bites and can heal others.”

He also shows that snakes guarded the gates to the underworld, the souls (or ba) of deities live in snakes and become snakes in the underworld, and the primeval gods at the beginning of time are also depicted as snakes living in the chaos waters prior to creation. Even the sun god is said to be rejuvenated in the body of a snake each night after the sun sets (or “dies” according to the mythology). The Egyptians, like the Mesopotamians, saw snakes as closely related to the spiritual realm, and they believed that their gods often appeared to be snakes or snake-like.

The question now is, how do we go from these cultures seeing their gods as snakes to the idea that the serpent in the Garden appeared to be snake-like. Well, as I discussed earlier, God has a divine council of heavenly beings. This council includes a class of beings called Cherubim. We talked about the shining cherub in our discussion of the divine rebel from Ezekiel 28. These Cherubim were seen to be “throne guardians” when compared to passages in Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4. However, they are also mentioned in Isaiah 6, where he has a vision of Yahweh’s throne room in heaven.

The difference in Isaiah’s account is that he calls them Seraphim instead of Cherubim. So, what does this mean? The word “Seraphim” comes from the Hebrew word for snake (saraph – שָׂרָ֥ף). It is the same word used in Numbers 21 when God sent “fiery serpents” or venomous snakes as a judgment on the rebellious people. In the DDD, T.N.D. Mettinger writes the article on Seraphim. He states, “The Seraphim are now generally conceived as winged serpents with certain human attributes,” and, “There is now an emerging consensus that the Egyptian uraeus serpent is the original source of the seraphim motif.”

As I wrote earlier, this “uraeus serpent” was seen as a guardian of the thrones of the kings and gods. Furthermore, it has been noted that this iconography was well known throughout Palestine (Israel) in later times, which would make it something that the Israelites would have been familiar with. Mettinger writes, “During the 8th century BCE the two-winged and, in Judah especially the four-winged, uraeus is a well attested motif on seals, while six-winged uraei do not seem to occur.” Interestingly, in all three of the biblical references to these creatures (Seraphim and Cherubim), they are seen in the position of throne guardians, but they are not spreading their wings to protect Yahweh. Instead, they use their wings to cover themselves, implying that Yahweh needs no protection.

OK, so what does all of this mean? Well, I think that this makes a good case for the idea of serpentine divine beings being a common view of the ancient Near East; therefore, it is likely that this would have been an idea that was familiar to the Israelites coming out of their Egyptian slavery. Because of that, and when we combine the linguistic and biblical evidence that the serpent was a divine being, I think that it is almost necessary to see the serpent of Genesis 3 as one of these shining, serpentine spiritual beings, who was giving a divine message (albeit a lying one) to Adam and Eve. This being was a throne guardian for God. He was intimately close to Him, and yet he decided to rebel and attempted to subvert the plan of God for humanity.

Why is this important? Well, I think that viewing the “serpent” as simply a snake minimizes the gravity of the truth of our spiritual battle that we face everyday. In Ephesians 6:12, Paul writes, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” He makes it clear that there are dark spiritual forces at work against us, and he doesn’t see this as metaphorical or just a story to teach us about evil people.

Not only that, but this being was close to God. As Christians, I think we need to take special notice of this. I’m not going to get into whether salvation can be lost or not, but I will say that, regardless of how close to God we are, there is always the possibility of our falling into sin and rebellion against Him. This is why we need to be careful and diligent to walk close to Him. It is easy to be deceived by the influences of spiritual forces in this world. I think we see this all around us today.

Finally, I think that when we take the time to see what the Bible is really saying in this passage in Genesis 3, it allows us to take it even more seriously than we may have in the past. We don’t have to try to justify some children’s story about a talking snake. We don’t have to try to explain away something that doesn’t make sense to our world today. Rather, we can see this as a glimpse into a real spiritual realm in which there are beings who want nothing less than our total destruction. Because of that, I think we can be more prepared to resist these forces on a daily basis. As Paul continued in Ephesians 6, “Put on the full armor of God.” Walk with Him and trust that His Spirit will guide through this spiritual battles.

As always, I love all of you, and I pray that you all find peace and grace in our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. I can’t wait to continue through this journey of uncovering the Bible with you all! Until next time . . .

P.S. – If you want to watch a video on this topic, check out InspiringPhilosophy on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72T2bW8bkfA&t=195s

Really? A Talking Snake? (Part 2)

As promised, I’m going to continue the topic the serpent in the Garden. In my last post, I went over how the Hebrew language points to the fact that this wasn’t a serpent, but a supernatural being. More specifically, it was a shining, snake-like (which I’ll explain in my next post), divining being who Eve would have believed belonged with her in the Garden. Why do I say that? How could a fallen being of any kind be expected to be in the Garden of Eden? Well, we’re going to look at that today by studying two other passages that seem to recount the event that led to the sinful fall of Adam and Eve.

As in past posts, I am going to be referencing The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser quite a bit. I feel like he does a great job of explaining how these two texts relate directly to Genesis 3 and how they bring the nachash into sharper focus. With that, let’s look at the first passage.

The first of these two passages is going to be Ezekiel 28:1-19. I’m not going to quote it all because it is pretty long, so please look it up for yourself. I will, however, hit a few of the key phrases and ideas. So, what is this passage about? Well, first and foremost, it is, as the heading in the ESV says, a prophecy against the prince of Tyre. Tyre was Phoenician city on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and clearly God was going to bring a judgment upon its prince.

In this passage, Ezekiel starts out in verses 1-10 clearly talking about a human ruler. In verses 2 and 9, Ezekiel points out that this ruler has claimed to a be god, but Yahweh is going to use a foreign nation (v. 7) to destroy him. There is nothing unusual about this passage. This is something that we see God do several times in the Old Testament . . . even to Israel and Judah! What is unusual is how Ezekiel continues.

There is a break in the prophecy, and in verse 11, the word of God comes to Ezekiel again, telling Ezekiel to lament over the prince of Tyre. What follows doesn’t seem to be about this prince, but about someone (or something) else. In verses 12-13, Ezekiel says, “. . . You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God . . .” This is important. I think that we can say that a ruler of a city during the 6th century B.C. was probably not ever the “signet of perfection,” nor were they in “Eden, the garden of God.”

Ezekiel goes on to describe this being as being covered in precious stones and gold. There is some debate on what this means. Some say that it describes the breastplate of the High Priest. I don’t think that is the case, but maybe I’ll talk about it more some other time . . . just not today. Rather, it seems to me that this description describes the shining appearance of whoever Ezekiel is talking about. We see the same idea applied to God on His throne in Revelation 4:3. Anyway, the point of this is that this being that Ezekiel is talking about is shiny. Sound familiar?

What else does this passage say about this being? Well, God calls him an “anointed guardian cherub,” and says, “You were on the holy mountain of God.” So here we see that God calls him a cherub. “What is a cherub,” you might ask. Well, it is not a cute, chubby, little baby with wings like a Precious Moments figurine or what you might see in paintings. No, a cherub (cherubim in plural form) was one of the highest levels of the divine beings.

If we look at Ezekiel 10, the cherubim seem to be the same “living creatures” who surrounded the throne in Ezekiel 1. They are “guardian cherubim,” or cherubim who guard the throne of God. Bernard F. Batto, in his book In the Beginning: Essays on Creation Motifs in the Ancient Near East and the Bible, says, “The ‘serpent’ [was] a semi-divine creature with wings and feet like the seraphs in Isa 6:2, whose function was to guard sacred persons and sacred objects such as the tree of divine wisdom.” So, the being that Ezekiel is writing about here seems to be one of these divine throne guardians – a cherub.

I could go on and talk about some more, but I will leave it at this (so as not to write a novel here): This being was proud and filled with violence because of his beauty and splendor. When paired with the part about the prince of Tyre above, it seems that Ezekiel is using the story of this cherub’s (who was in Eden) pride and arrogance to talk about the prince’s idea that he is equal to God. In that way, we can say that this divine being was doing the same thing, and we can see this as another account of what transpired in the Garden between the serpent and Eve. There is, however, debate on who exactly this being is, but I can’t get into that here.

The second passage is Isaiah 14. Unlike Ezekiel 28, scholars are nearly unanimous in believing that this is about the serpent of Genesis 3. Isaiah 14:3-23 are a taunt of the king of Babylon. Most of it seems to be straightforward and directed at the actual king. There is, however, a small section in the middle where Isaiah seems to be envisioning someone other than the king of Babylon . . . a divine rebel from the past.

In v. 12, Isaiah writes, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!” This is the passage where we get the word Lucifer, which is a Latin translation of “Day Star.” Here we see this being has fallen from heaven, and is called the Day Star (or Morning Star in some translations) which is like in Job 38:7 where the sons of God are called morning stars. The Hebrew is different though. In Isaiah it says helel ben-shachar, which literally means “shining one, son of the dawn.” (Unseen Realm, 85).

This “shining one” wanted to be above the stars of heaven. This means that he wanted to rule over the heavenly host, a thing that only God can do. He wanted to take the place of God, making himself “like the Most-High.” He wanted to “sit on the mountain of assembly on the summit of Zaphon.” Now, there is a lot in that little sentence, but basically, he is saying that he wants to take God’s throne and rule over the divine council. The summit of the mountain of assembly would be where God is enthroned, above the stars (the heavenly host).

Ok, so those are the passages I wanted to look at. Let me take just a little bit here to tie this all up and make sense of it. We saw in the last post that the serpent was really a shiny divine being. In these two passages, what we see is a shiny divine being, in Eden, who sees himself to be equal to God and deserving of His place of authority. This being wants to take that authority, but God stops him and casts him down, out of Eden, to the pit.

I don’t know about you, but when I put all of that together, what I see is that the serpent in the Garden was this same being who, trying to usurp God’s authority, deceived God’s beloved humans in order to separate them from God forever. This helel ben-shachar is the serpent of Eden, and both Ezekiel and Isaiah used the story of this divine rebellion in Eden to show the depths of evil and pride that were responsible for God’s judgment on the rulers of Tyre and Babylon.

There is SO much more I want to say here, but this is too long already. My next post is going to go more into the cultural background of all of this and more into the throne guardian idea. Anyway, this was a lot, but I hope it was interesting. I hope that it helps you to see how so much of the Bible is interconnected. Anyway, I love you all. Thanks for reading my ramblings, and I hope you all have an amazing day!