Moses: The Bronze Snake

Today's lesson is Moses and the Bronze Serpent. I have a MOSES booklet that I used as a review for Moses since this is the last lesson for Moses. We also made the bronze serpent to go with the lesson.

Review: In the previous lesson, we talked about the twelve men that went to the land of Canaan. God told Moses to pick one man from each of the 12 tribes. They searched the land for 40 days, and they brought back grapes so big they had to be carried on a pole between two men! The spies also brought some of the pomegranates and figs back with them. They also told everyone that the people there were strong, and the cities were very large and protected. The men said they felt like grasshoppers compared to the people there because they were giants, and they were so strong!

Only Joshua and Caleb had faith that God would be with the Israelites to help them go into the land of Canaan. Because some of the spies didn’t believe God would protect them, and they had searched the land for 40 days, God would make the people wander in the wilderness for 40 years (1 year for each 1 day). (vs. 34) Joshua and Caleb were the only spies that had faith in God. The other 10 died from a plague. (vs. 37)

Lesson Bible Scripture is Numbers 20-21:4-9: We are in the book of Numbers and Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Old Testament. (Say them) Moses' sister Miriam has died, and the people are complaining again about Moses bringing them into the wilderness to die. And, they were tired of the same food, they were so thirsty. The people gathered around Moses and Aaron and asked them "Why did you bring us out of Egypt to be in this wilderness? We don't have any water!"

Moses and Aaron left the people and went to the tabernacle tent, and they bowed their faces to the ground. The glory of the Lord came to them.

God told Moses to take Aaron and his rod and gather all the people around the rock. God told Moses to talk to the rock in front of the people and the rock would give them water. Moses told the people to listen, and Moses told the people to listen! Moses asked them if he had to get water from the rock for them? (20: 10)

Moses held up his hand with the rod and he hit the rock 2 times! Water came pouring out of the rock! There was enough for everyone to drink, even the animals! But God said to Moses, because you didn't believe Me, and you didn't say God was providing the water to the people, [hallow make holy vs. 12] you will not be permitted to take the people out of this land. (Hand out water bottles)

Hallow: To make holy; to set apart from common. (Dictionary of Words from the King James Bible. Public Domain. http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/king-james-dictionary/hallow.html)

God told Moses to TALK to the rock, instead, he was so upset at the people, he hit the rock 2 times! Moses disobeyed God, and because of not doing EXACTLY what God commanded, he didn't get to leave the wilderness and go into the promised land!

A short time after that Aaron died, and the people mourned him for 30 days. (20:29)

As the people traveled through the wilderness, they fought some battles. Then they were upset again and asked Moses why he took them out of Egypt if they were just going to die in the wilderness? They were tired of eating manna and there wasn't any food or water! (21:5)

God is taking care of them and giving them what they need, but they are still complaining! God sent serpents and they bit the people and many of the people died. The Bible states 'fiery serpents' which means when the people were bit by the serpents, there was a burning pain = fiery.

Of course, the people didn't like the serpents, and they went to Moses. They told him that they knew they had sinned against God, and asked Moses to pray to the Lord to take the serpents away from them.

Our Bible verse for today: Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” Moses made the bronze serpent and he put it on a pole. And, just as God promised, if anyone was bitten by a serpent, and they looked at the bronze snake on the pole, they would not die. Numbers 21:8 (NKJV)

I made this Moses letter book for today to use as a review for all we have studied about Moses. This style is book like I have made for scrapbooking. I printed mine on white cardstock, cut out, and added 2 holes on the side. I tied the ribbon so there was a loop left open. When the kids open the book, they can lay it flat and not bend the book.

There are several choices. The first one is basically a full size, which would be great for a teacher's visual, or if you can spare the paper to make the big book. Click here to print.

This next choice is the same as the above one, but they are half the size and make 2 per set. Click here to print.

This last one is all black & white, without the graphics. Your students can fill in the blanks on each page and draw their own picture to go with the thought for each letter. Click here to print.

To make these books:

If possible, print onto cardstock. You don't have to print onto cardstock, but they will hold up better with kids. As you cut each page out, you cut around the left side of the rectangle/square/page area, then, as you come around to the right side of the letters, they are around the outside. LEAVING the letters attached to the page. For an example, look at the pages above. The letter S is not touched on the left, but the right side is. When the pages are layered on top of each other, they will spell out the word, in this case MOSES. Lay them as you see in the photo and use a hole punch on the left side to add the holes to make it like a book. You can use ribbon, or book rings to hold the pages together.

I used 1/8" dowel rods precut at 12". I painted rubber snakes with bronze paint. (I would suggest a harder plastic snake, because when you pull on these snakes, the paint peeled off) Then, I used a bread twisty tie (or wire, whatever, I used the closest thing available ☺) and tied it around the center of the snake. I put a glue dot at the top of the dowel rod, around the sides, and twisted the twisty tie-on top of the glue dot. I laid them out for the kids to pick one when they came to class, then let them form a small ball of green (or brown) Play Doh into a mound. Then, they could stand up the dowel rod with the snake on top of it. Sorry, couldn't get a good picture.



Click here to download the updated visuals.

Not all are shown.

Click here to download the pictures to color.
(These are the same as the visuals but are black & white.)

Click here to print the worksheet.

This is today's cut & glue picture to color. I print the backgrounds on different color cardstock, and the pictures for the students to cut are on regular paper. You can print it here.

Here is the same picture but is a picture to color (no cutting). Print it here.

Click on the picture on above to see all the Moses cut & glue pictures to color.

We marked our Moses map for his travels. You can find more information here.

Bible Verse:  Numbers 21:8 

 

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.

Used by permission.