Have you ever been to a doctor’s office or pharmacy and seen a picture or a piece of art featuring snakes wrapped around a pole?
It is the official logo of the World Health Organization, but the symbol has been around a lot longer than that — way longer, in fact.In our world of signs and symbols, this one is a bit of a mystery unless one reaches back into Biblical history.
In the Old Testament, the story of the miraculous delivery of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt has been repeatedly told and remembered. In the book of Numbers, however, they were complaining about the long road to the Promised Land and began to blaspheme God. They also blamed Moses, saying he only brought them out of Egypt to starve in the wilderness.
You may remember God sent fiery serpents among the Israelites and the snakes were biting the people. The Israelites had an attitude adjustment and begged for a release from the curse. As the Bible says:
“The LORD said to Moses, ‘make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”
So, to be healed, all they had to do was look at this rod with a brass snake on it? The Caduceus survived for 700 years, even becoming an idol of worship among the Israelites. And people from all over would have seen this metal snake on a rod.
Even today, people may think the Bible has nothing to do with our modern world, but in reality we are surrounded by the Bible! Today’s version of the snake bites might be how we treat one another, particularly online as we talk about events in our town.
Obviously, I am not perfect by any means, but one thing that is disturbing to me is how people will talk about other people’s children on social media.
It’s one thing to say, “We need to do this,” or “We need a new that,” but when you start calling out the kids by name for what they did or didn’t do at a ball game — isn’t that just a bit beyond what is acceptable? Even worse, calling out their families and bringing up past hurts or events to try and draw out the other party for an online response?
I don’t know, but to me, the snake bites that need healing are self-inflicted. Hopefully someday, they will create a Caduceus to keep us from harming ourselves.
Michael Bird is a music teacher at Tallassee City Schools.
