{"collection":"Hypertext Bible","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_bib_vul_num021_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_bib_vul_num021_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_bib_vul_num021_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bib/vul/num021.htm","summary":"This is a passage of Latin prose from the Vulgate Bible, corresponding to Numbers 21 \u2014 a narrative section of the Hebrew Torah recounting episodes from Israel's wilderness wandering after the Exodus. The passage covers four discrete incidents: Israel's military victory over the Canaanite king of Arad (after a vow to God), the plague of fiery serpents sent as divine punishment for the people's complaining, and two conquest narratives \u2014 the defeat of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. A distinguishing structural feature is the embedding of ancient poetic fragments within the prose narrative, including a well-song (\"Ascendat puteus\") and a taunting war-poem about Heshbon, which the text attributes to older Israelite oral tradition (\"the book of the wars of the Lord\"). The bronze serpent episode is theologically notable: God instructs Moses to fashion a copper image of the very creature causing harm, and looking at it heals the afflicted \u2014 a striking instance of apotropaic ritual embedded in a monotheistic text. The overall movement traces Israel's gradual territorial acquisition east of the Jordan, framing military success as divine gift and military defeat as divinely engineered, with the conquered lands serving as a prelude to the main Canaan campaign ahead.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Vulgate: Numbers: Numbers Chapter 21","tradition":"Hypertext Bible","translated_text":null,"word_count":638}