Jesus and the Serpent

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up,” Jesus told Nicodemus.

It’s a chiasm:

A. Lifted up

B. Serpent

C. Wilderness

B’. Son of Man

A’. lifted up.

Two interesting questions emerge here:

Birst, by whom is the Son of Man lifted up? The passive might be taken as a “divine passive,” which is true enough. At the same time, the chiasm hints that we can place Moses at either end: Moses lifted up the serpent, the Son of Man will be lifted up by Moses , by Jews wielding Torah like a deadly weapon.

Second, the wilderness is at the center of the verse, with nothing matching. Literally, Jesus is still talking about Moses, but again the structure hints that “in the wilderness” might be doing double duty, as applicable to the lifting up of the Son of Man as to the elevation of the serpent. That might be true in various senses: Jerusalem has become a wilderness, where the Son of Man is lifted; or, Jesus is taken outside the city into the “wilderness” to be put to death.