One of the sons of Com was named Heth, a noun that means "terror." It was the name of the progenitor of the Hittites, the children of Heth, in Genesis, who were the inhabitants of Palestine during the time of Abraham. Ephron, of whom the Patriarch bought the field of Machpelah, with the cave in which he interred the remains of his wife Sarah, was a Hittite. (10
Heth, the son of Com, was what his name signified, a terror. He joined some criminal, secret organization, murdered his father and usurped his office. (v. 27)
The wickedness of the king had its corrupting influence on the people. His subjects imitated him. Lawlessness in high places is particularly contagious. As a rule, the moral status of a nation is at the level of the leading and ruling classes. The Jaredites under Heth became as wicked as he was.
The Lord sent prophets, or missionaries, who called upon them to repent and who predicted a great famine if they persisted in wrong-doing. They rejected the message and persecuted, and even killed, the messengers, at the instigation of the king. (vv. 28, 29)
The famine came. God withheld rain. The gardens and fields became parched. Water supplies dried up. Prosperous farms were desolated by the scorching rays of the sun. Trees died. Nowhere any cooling shade. Hot sandstorms added terror to other calamities. People perished by famine. Some were killed by the poisonous reptiles that multiplied in the deserted land. Domestic animals, being without the wanted human care and protection, followed their instinct and began a gradual trek southward toward the country of Zarahemla, away from the burning desert and the loathesome snakes. But many of these perished on the road. Some reached the land southward. (vv. 30-32)
Time passed. The snakes disappeared from the land still occupied and multiplied along the main roads of traffic, where they became a deadly menace to traders and travelers. The country became isolated as well as desolated. The inhabitants hunted carcasses of animals that had been killed by snakes, and when that source of food had been exhausted, death seemed to be the only alternative. (vv. 33, 34)
Then the people repented. They turned to the Lord. He sent rain. The country was resurrected to life and became prosperous again. (v. 35)
The apostate Jaredites may, possibly, have turned to serpent worship in their blind efforts to escape God. That may have been one tenet of their secret society. If so, the punishment by snakes was a method of divine instruction as well as retribution. It proved to the people that the death-dealing reptiles were anything but divine, and that God in Heaven is the supreme Ruler in the world.
The children of Israel had, at one time, a similar demonstration in the wilderness. At Mt. Horeb they became rebellious and accused Moses of having led them out into a desert to perish of hunger. Then their camp became infested by serpents which killed many of the agitators. The people were frightened and turned to God. Moses was instructed to make a serpent of brass and raise the image up on a pole. Anyone who was wounded would be healed by looking at this brazen figure.
Many of the Israelites, no doubt, had the eastern idea that the serpent had healing power. Among Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Phoenicians and others, the serpent was supposed to bring health and good fortune. Moses by directing the wounded to look upon the brazen image hanging lifeless on a pole, demonstrated that healing comes from God, by faith, not from contact with a coiling reptile. (Numbers 21:4-9) The vindication of the supremacy of God, we think, was the object lesson of the experience of Israel in the wilderness, and of Jaredites in the Land of Moron.