(First of two parts)
2025 is the lunar year of the snake. Loathe them or love them, snakes are slithering into the limelight this year. Furthermore, 2025 is also the Jubilee Year of Hope.
For the Chinese, snakes represent wisdom, transformation, calmness, charm, thoughtfulness, creativity, and longevity. But for most people, snakes have negative connotations, even in the previously simple and popular board game, “Snakes and Ladders,” where the players slip down notches via the slippery skin of snakes, while they go up the squares by climbing ladders.
People generally have a phobia of these slimy, treacherous snakes. Research has shown that almost half the human population is anxious around snakes.
However, snakes do play a useful role in the ecosystems, like helping to control rodent populations. After all, snakes are also created by God, and all of creation is good.
So, are snakes good or bad? It depends. Employing the Ignatian First Principle and Foundation, we can consider that all created beings (including snakes) are to be used to praise, reverence, and serve God.
For Chinese Christians, embracing both faith and traditional Chinese festivals can be a delicate balance, especially when they seemingly collide. This year of the snake is a good example. Let’s meander through the Judeo-Christian perspective related to the snake in order to bring us greater understanding regarding this cold-blooded reptile and its usefulness or the lack of it.
The first mention of a snake or serpent in scriptures is from Genesis 3. Is there any difference in the English language between a snake and a serpent? Serpent and snake are often used interchangeably. Snake is an old English word from before the Norman invasion of 1066, while serpent came into English from the French in the 1300s. Snake is a more technical term and more likely to be used in a natural historical context, whereas serpent is the more poetic version.
In Genesis 3, the serpent is considered more crafty than any other beast of the field. Its subtlety, or craftiness, or shrewdness manages to tempt Eve with a lie, that is, it is good to eat the forbidden fruit. The serpent is depicted as the architect of the fall of Adam and Eve. As a result, God punishes the serpent to crawl on its belly and eat dust. Not only that, there would be enmity between the serpent and the woman and between their respective offspring. The serpent would strike their heels, and the humans would crush their heads.
The general understanding, as from the example by St Paul, is that Eve is deceived by the serpent’s cunning (2 Cor 11:3), not because the serpent is evil. The snake in the Eden story is more to represent the impulse to temptation rather than the personification of evil. The snake is still one of God’s created animals, and Adam plays a role in naming it. In relation to slyness, the psalmist says negatively about snakes, serpents, and asps, “The tongue is sharp as a serpent’s, and under their lips is the venom of asps” (Ps 140:3).
But there are also some positive examples about snakes in scriptures. When Moses doubts God’s call for him to free the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, God turns his staff into a snake. Moses runs away from it because of fright, but God asks him to take it by its tail, and it turns back into his staff (Ex 4:1-5). When Moses and Aaron face Pharaoh to demand he release the Hebrew people, as a sign of power, God asks Aaron to throw down his staff and it turns into a snake. The same is done by the magicians of Egypt with their secret arts. But Aaron’s staff (snake) swallows up their staffs (snakes) (Ex 7:8-12).
Why turn Moses’ staff into a snake? God could turn that staff into anything. Moses would have carried his staff with him most of the time, because at that time it was a common shepherd’s tool to guide and protect. Moses also would have used his staff to part the Red Sea and in drawing water from a rock. What it tells us is that the staff does not contain power. It’s the might of God using it in the hand of Moses.
Moreover, when Moses and Aaron perform the miracle of changing a staff to a snake, the act directly threatens Pharaoh’s rule, because snakes play a prominent role in Egyptian religion and mythology. What more, Aaron’s snake devours the other snakes made by the magicians. This manifests the power of the Hebrew God over their gods and over Pharaoh and his kingdom. Therefore, snakes are used to further the plan of God. They are means towards an end.
In part two, we’ll delve deeper into these biblical accounts, exploring how snakes are used to teach profound lessons and what they reveal about God’s plan for humanity.
Fr Francis Lim, SJ is the Regional Superior of the Jesuits of Malaysia-Singapore Region since 15 December 2022.