Dr. Jordan B. Peterson and his panel of renowned scholars discuss the passion of Jesus Christ and the connections between His crucifixion and the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land in the latest episode of “Exodus,” streaming now on DailyWire+.
As the panel concludes their study of Exodus, they focus on Moses’ journey in Numbers and Deuteronomy, explaining how the events connect with the life and power of Jesus. One section of Scripture the group discusses is Numbers 21:4-9, which recounts the story of the Israelites complaining about the food being provided, prompting God to send fiery serpents. When they asked Moses to intercede, God instructed him to raise a bronze serpent on a pole as an antidote for those who got bit. Moses raised the bronze serpent and anyone who looked toward it lived.
“The gospel, the passion of Christ is, at minimum, it’s an account of all the terrible things that could possibly happen to you in your life, if all the terrible things that could happen in a life happen to you,” Peterson says. “It’s all the serpents. The crucifixion is all of the serpents at once: It’s betrayal and it’s death and it’s torture and it’s unjust death and it’s being selected for death over a criminal and it’s a betrayal of your best friend.”
“It’s like everything. The idea here is that if that is confronted voluntarily and radically accepted, it’s simultaneously transcended,” Peterson adds.
During a conversation with Nicodemus recounted in the Gospel of John, Jesus compares Himself to the bronze serpent, explaining that He must be lifted up so that anyone who believes in Him will have eternal life. Peterson says that this foreshadowing in Numbers is astonishing, describing it as “absolutely beyond comprehension.”
Peterson and the panel later discuss Deuteronomy 34, which describes the death of Moses after the Lord showed him the Promised Land from the top of Mount Nebo. The Lord says to Moses, “I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither,” and then Moses died in Moab, but the chapter makes clear that no man knows his burial place.
Dennis Prager, co-founder of PragerU, says he finds it powerful that God buried Moses himself. “God buried him. I find this the most touching sentence in the Torah,” Prager says.
“He’s buried in anonymity,” Peterson adds. “But then again, not, right? Because Moses’ tomb is the book of Exodus, and it has outlasted everything. So he got nothing, and yet the most permanent possible tomb imaginable.”
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This is the eighth of nine new episodes in the series, which explores the importance of Exodus alongside insights from theological and literary scholars – showing why the book remains significant thousands of years after being written.
For a deep dive into the Ten Commandments and other important topics in Exodus, including the meaning and restrictions of “an eye for an eye,” you can watch previous episodes here.
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