In the Old Testament of the Bible we have references of Moses throwing down his rod at the behest of God and the rod becoming a serpent and in another context the rod of Aron becoming a serpent and devouring the magician's serpent in a bid for spiritual eminence before the Pharaoh of Egypt. We have also the account of the fiery serpents sent by God to punish the people of Israel when they spoke ill of God and Moses, and the setting up of a Brazen serpent on a pole by Moses at the command of God when he (Moses) interceded on behalf of the repentant people, so that all those who were afflicted by the bite of these fiery serpents may get cured by looking at this Brazen serpent. Esoterically the fiery serpents can be taken as symbols of the lower side of the mind and the Brazen serpent as the symbol of the higher side of mind with its knowledge and wisdom that could cure all the malaise of the lower mind.

The worship of the Brazen serpent with God's patronage continued till the time of Hezekiah who failed to see the wisdom of Moses and who contemptuously destroyed it describing it as a piece of brass. But Hezekiah did not succeed in destroying the symbol from the people's mind. We see years later St. John the Divine speaking about it in the following lines:

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the son of man be lifted up."