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By William Van Zyl
Published 22 September 2026
Do you want to develop your creativity and your innovation skills?
Please continue reading. In this post, I reveal ancient secrets.
The Forgotten Sapphire Manuscript
What if an ancient story was hiding in plain sight?
The manuscript was old. Tattered. Must have been read thousands upon thousands of times.
A forgotten patina clung to its skin.
Its leather cover had cracked with age, its pages were yellowed and brittle, and a fine layer of dust covered the strange writing.
Nobody knew exactly where it had come from.
But one word appeared repeatedly.
SAPPHIRE.
The reader turned another page.
There was Adam.
Then the sapphire.
Another page.
Noah.
And then, the sapphire.
It appeared unexpectedly.
Abraham.
Again it appeared.
Isaac.
And again.
Jacob.
Again?
Joseph.
And again.
Then—
Moses.
The reader stopped.
A cold feeling travelled down his spine.
Buried in an ancient tradition was a story about a mysterious sapphire staff.
A staff that had supposedly travelled through generations.
A staff connected with Adam.
A staff that eventually came into the hands of Moses.
The reader looked back at the pages of the Bible lying beside the manuscript.
Suddenly the images began to collide.
The staff.
The serpent.
Pharaoh.
The Red Sea.
The wilderness.
The bronze serpent.
The Rock.
Water.
The Cross.
The ancient serpent.
Satan.
The Kingdom.
The keys.
And then another thought entered his mind.
What if the greatest stories ever told were born from these images?
What if an ancient writer saw the same connections?
What if he looked at the mysterious sapphire staff and imagined another object?
A sword.
A sword buried in stone.
A sword waiting for the person who had the authority to remove it.
And what if, centuries later, that image became part of King Arthur’s legend?
We cannot say that this happened.
No historical evidence proves it.
But the possibility is deliciously intriguing.
Because once you begin following the trail of the sapphire, something remarkable happens.
The Bible becomes an extraordinary landscape of symbols.
And the ancient literature surrounding it becomes an equally extraordinary collection of imaginative echoes.
THE SAPPHIRE ROD
The story begins with the mysterious Book of Jasher.
But first, an important warning.
The surviving work called The Book of Jasher is not part of the biblical canon, and it is not normally classified among the standard books of the biblical Apocrypha.
It is an extra-biblical work containing expanded traditions about biblical characters.
The Bible itself mentions a Book of Jasher in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18.
Whether the surviving work is the ancient book referred to in those passages is a separate historical question.
That distinction matters.
The Bible is Scripture.
Jasher is an extra-biblical tradition.
We should keep them separate.
But we can still read them alongside one another.
And when we do, something fascinating happens.
JASHER 77: THE STAFF
In Chapter 77 of the surviving Jasher tradition, Moses encounters an extraordinary object.
A sapphire staff.
The account describes the staff as bearing the name of God.
But the story goes much further.
The staff had supposedly travelled through the generations.
Adam.
Noah.
Shem.
Abraham.
Isaac.
Jacob.
Joseph.
Reuel.
Moses.
Imagine that.
An object passing through generations of humanity.
An artefact travelling through history.
The staff becomes almost like a witness.
It has seen the world before the Flood.
It has travelled through the patriarchal age.
It has entered Egypt.
And eventually—
Moses holds it.
According to this tradition, Adam even used the staff while working the soil.
The first man.
The ground.
The mysterious staff.
The beginning of human labour.
And then, thousands of years of imagined history lead to Moses.
THE STAFF BEFORE PHARAOH
Now close the manuscript.
Open Exodus.
Moses stands before Pharaoh.
God has commanded him to demonstrate a sign.
Aaron throws the staff onto the ground.
And suddenly—
it becomes a serpent.
The Egyptian magicians imitate the sign.
Their staffs become serpents too.
For a moment, the Egyptian court appears to possess an answer.
Then—
the serpent associated with Aaron’s staff swallows their serpents.
One serpent consumes the others.
The image is extraordinary.
The Bible is communicating more than spectacle.
The God of Israel is demonstrating supremacy over the powers represented by Pharaoh’s magicians.
Now reopen Jasher.
Look at the sapphire staff.
Look at Moses.
Look again at Exodus.
Could these traditions be remembering the same mysterious object?
The Bible never says so.
We cannot prove it.
But the question opens an extraordinary door.
THE METAL SWALLOWED THE POISON
Then comes another image.
The wilderness.
Israel is suffering.
Venomous serpents are biting the people.
The poison spreads.
People die.
Moses intercedes.
God gives him an extraordinary instruction.
Make a serpent.
Put it upon a pole.
Lift it up.
Those who look upon it will live.
Moses makes the serpent from bronze.
Bronze.
Metal.
A serpent.
Poison.
Healing.
What an extraordinary combination.
The very image associated with the poisonous creature becomes the instrument through which healing is offered.
The metal serpent has no magical power.
It is not a god.
It is a sign established by God’s command.
And centuries later, Jesus Himself refers to this strange wilderness event.
“AS MOSES LIFTED UP THE SERPENT…”
Jesus tells Nicodemus:
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
Suddenly the wilderness becomes a shadow of the Cross.
The serpent is lifted.
Christ is lifted.
The dying look.
Life is given.
The imagery becomes astonishing.
The thing associated with death becomes the sign through which God points toward life.
Place the images together:
The sapphire staff.
The serpent.
The bronze serpent.
The pole.
The Cross.
Christ.
The ancient images begin to speak to one another—not because Jasher is Scripture, and not because every detail must conceal a secret meaning, but because biblical imagery is remarkably interconnected.
THE ANCIENT SERPENT
Genesis begins with a serpent.
Revelation ends with the defeat of “that ancient serpent.”
The creature in Eden becomes associated with deception, temptation and humanity’s fall.
The New Testament and Revelation develop this imagery in connection with Satan.
The story has come full circle.
The serpent that appears near the beginning of the biblical story appears again near its conclusion.
But now the serpent is defeated.
Christ has conquered death.
Christ has triumphed over the powers of darkness.
Christ holds the keys of Death and Hades.
And Jesus tells His disciples that He gives them authority over the enemy’s power.
The Christian proclamation becomes wonderfully simple:
The poison does not win.
THE ROCK
Now return to Moses.
Israel is thirsty.
There is no water.
God tells Moses to take the staff and speak to the rock.
But Moses becomes angry.
He strikes the rock twice.
Water nevertheless bursts from it.
The people drink.
Yet Moses’ disobedience has consequences.
He will not enter the Promised Land.
There is something deeply tragic here.
Moses was instructed to speak.
Instead, he struck.
And yet—
water came out.
Now Paul gives us one of the most extraordinary statements in the New Testament.
He says that Israel drank from the spiritual rock that followed them.
And then:
“That Rock was Christ.”
Suddenly the rock is no longer merely a rock.
It becomes a theological image.
The Rock is Christ.
The Rock provides water.
The Rock sustains God’s people.
The Rock becomes a picture of Christ.
“LEAD ME TO THE ROCK THAT IS HIGHER THAN I”
David understood the language of the rock.
He writes of God as his rock, fortress and deliverer.
He cries:
“Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
What a phrase.
Higher than me.
Stronger than me.
More secure than me.
A place of refuge.
A place where I cannot save myself, but where God can save me.
And then Paul whispers across the centuries:
That Rock was Christ.
THE CROSS
Now imagine a vertical line.
A horizontal line.
A cross.
The vertical points upward.
The horizontal stretches outward.
Humanity meets God.
Earth meets heaven.
The Cross becomes the place where the Christian story reaches its terrifying and glorious centre.
The wilderness serpent is lifted.
Christ is lifted.
The ancient serpent is defeated.
Death is conquered.
The grave cannot hold Him.
The Rock has been struck.
Water has flowed.
The Cross has been raised.
The tomb has been opened.
And the poison—
has lost its power.
DID JESUS GO DOWN INTO HELL?
Christian theology has long reflected on Christ’s descent into the realm of the dead, based on passages such as Acts 2:31, Ephesians 4:9 and 1 Peter 3:18–20, as well as the historic Christian confession that Christ “descended to the dead.”
The exact meaning of these passages has been debated among Christians.
But the ancient Christian proclamation is unmistakable:
Christ entered the realm of death and emerged victorious.
He did not remain in the grave.
The serpent did not win.
Death did not win.
Satan did not win.
Christ rose.
And the keys belong to Him.
THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
Jesus tells Peter:
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
A key.
What an image.
A key opens.
A key releases.
A key gives access.
A key represents authority.
The Christian imagination is now surrounded by objects:
The staff.
The serpent.
The bronze.
The rock.
The cross.
The key.
Each object carries meaning.
Each becomes part of a larger theological vocabulary.
And perhaps this is one reason biblical imagery has inspired artists and writers for thousands of years.
The Bible gives the imagination objects that carry stories.
AND THEN CAME THE SWORD
Now let us step into the world of legend.
Imagine an author opening an ancient manuscript.
He reads about Adam.
He reads about Moses.
He reads about the mysterious staff.
He reads about the object that identifies the chosen person.
Then he imagines another object.
Not a staff.
A sword.
Not in the hand.
But in a stone.
Not easily removed.
Only the rightful person can pull it free.
The crowd gathers.
Men try.
They fail.
Another tries.
He fails.
Then a young man approaches.
He places his hand upon the sword.
And—
it moves.
The impossible happens.
The sword comes free.
The young man is revealed.
He is the king.
WAS ARTHUR BORN FROM JASHER?
Here we must put the brakes on our imagination for a moment.
The Sword-in-the-Stone story is documented in medieval Arthurian literature, particularly in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, written around AD 1136.
No established evidence shows that Geoffrey read the surviving Book of Jasher and adapted its sapphire staff into Arthur’s sword.
Therefore, presenting that as historical fact would be misleading.
But there is a fascinating literary parallel:
a mysterious object, a chosen person, a test, a revelation of authority, and a kingdom.
Moses has the staff.
Arthur has the sword.
The stories are not identical.
But the pattern is powerful.
THE SWORD AND THE STAFF
Moses’ staff identifies and accompanies a leader.
Arthur’s sword identifies and establishes a king.
Moses leads Israel.
Arthur becomes king.
Moses confronts Pharaoh.
Arthur faces enemies threatening his kingdom.
Moses carries an extraordinary object.
Arthur carries an extraordinary weapon.
These are not the same story.
But they demonstrate something writers have always understood:
images can migrate.
A staff can become a sword.
A wilderness can become a kingdom.
A test can become a legend.
A symbol can become a story.
And suddenly an ancient image acquires new life.
WHERE WRITERS COME ALIVE
This is the extraordinary thing about writing.
A writer can take an image that has existed for thousands of years and transform it.
A rock becomes a doorway.
A staff becomes a key.
A serpent becomes a symbol.
A sword becomes a test.
A crown becomes a burden.
A kingdom becomes a spiritual metaphor.
A wilderness becomes a journey.
A death becomes a resurrection.
The Christian writer has an almost inexhaustible treasury of images.
And the Bible is the source of many of them.
NARNIA
C. S. Lewis understood the power of imaginative storytelling.
Narnia contains:
A lion.
A witch.
A traitor.
A sacrifice.
A stone table.
Death.
Resurrection.
A new world.
The story does not simply reproduce the Gospel narratives.
Instead, Lewis creates another world in which Christian ideas can be experienced through story.
The reader discovers courage.
Sacrifice.
Forgiveness.
Redemption.
Hope.
And resurrection.
The imagination opens the door.
The meaning enters behind it.
MIDDLE-EARTH
Tolkien’s approach was different.
He strongly resisted reducing The Lord of the Rings to a simple allegory.
Yet his Christian worldview profoundly shaped the moral and spiritual landscape of his writing.
Middle-earth contains:
Temptation.
Sacrifice.
Mercy.
Fallenness.
Providence.
Hope.
Death.
Unexpected deliverance.
A king.
A broken kingdom.
A return.
A restoration.
These themes resonate deeply with Christian imagination without turning Middle-earth into another Bible.
And that is an important lesson.
Christian fiction does not have to become Scripture.
It can be fiction.
Its power can lie precisely in its ability to make us imagine.
THE BIBLE IS EXTRAVAGANT
Think about what is actually inside the Bible.
A talking serpent.
A worldwide Flood.
An enormous ark.
A burning bush.
Plagues.
A sea dividing.
Bread falling from heaven.
Water coming from a rock.
A bronze serpent.
Angels.
Giants.
Dreams.
Visions.
Fire from heaven.
A man swallowed by a great fish.
A valley of dry bones.
A virgin birth.
Demons.
Miracles.
Walking on water.
A transfiguration.
A Cross.
An empty tomb.
Resurrection.
Angels.
A dragon.
A final battle.
A New Jerusalem.
A new heaven.
A new earth.
If these things were presented to a modern novelist as a proposed fantasy manuscript, someone might say:
“That is too extravagant.”
Yet there it is.
The Bible.
THE MOST EXTRAVAGANT STORY
And perhaps the most extravagant idea of all is not the sapphire staff.
It is this:
God entered His creation.
The Creator became part of His own story.
The Word became flesh.
The One who created the world walked upon the earth.
He touched lepers.
He spoke to fishermen.
He forgave sinners.
He confronted evil.
He was crucified.
He died.
He rose.
And He promised His followers a Kingdom.
That is not merely an extravagant story.
For Christians, it is the heart of reality.
THE METAL SWALLOWED THE POISON
So return to the title.
The Metal Swallowed the Poison.
It is an image.
The bronze serpent represents the poisonous creature.
The serpent represents death.
Watch closely; here it comes.
Imagine the bronze serpent tied to a tall rod, a long sapphire pole, the shape: a cross.
The Cross becomes the place where Christ confronts death.
And Christ emerges victorious. Yes, you have guessed it: The sapphire vertical post and the bronze bar. That horizontal bar would symbolize the serpent of Moses. The one thief or murderer looked at the “serpent”, and lo and behold Salvator Mundi (the Saviour of the World who takes away the sin of the World – “the poison of sin”) is on the cross. Yeshua defeated death, hell, and the grave.
The object does not save.
God saves.
The metal does not heal.
God heals.
The staff does not perform miracles independently.
God performs the miracle.
The Cross is not a magical object.
It points toward the One who died upon it.
And the serpent does not have the final word.
Jesus does.
FOR THE CHRISTIAN WRITER, and the non-Christian writer
Perhaps this is where the ancient stories become most exciting.
Do not merely read the Bible.
Look at it.
Look at the objects.
Look at the colours.
Look at the landscapes.
Look at the strange creatures.
Look at the journeys.
Look at the symbols.
Look at the conflicts.
Look at the unanswered questions.
Here are some of the questions that can open a writer’s imagination:
Why a serpent?
Why bronze?
Why a rock?
Why water?
Why a staff?
Why a cross?
Why a sword?
Why a kingdom?
Why a key?
But the writer need not interrogate every image.
Sometimes one image is enough.
A sapphire staff.
A serpent swallowing another serpent.
Water bursting from a rock.
A bronze serpent lifted above a dying camp.
A Cross standing against the darkness.
A sword locked inside stone.
Take one image.
Turn it over.
Look underneath it.
Then ask the writer’s simplest and most powerful question:
What story could grow from this?
THE MANUSCRIPT CLOSES
The ancient manuscript lies open.
The word SAPPHIRE is visible on the final page.
You reach for it.
The page trembles beneath your fingers.
You look at the staff.
Then the serpent.
Then the rock.
Then the Cross.
Then the key.
Then the sword.
You close the manuscript.
For a moment, everything is silent.
Perhaps that is the gift of biblical imagery.
It does not always give the writer the finished story.
Sometimes—
it gives him the spark.
The question.
The image.
The impossible object.
The mysterious character.
The ancient symbol.
And then—
the imagination catches fire.
The Bible remains the Bible.
Jasher remains Jasher.
The Apocrypha remains the Apocrypha.
Legend remains legend.
Fiction remains fiction.
But the creative conversation between these worlds can be extraordinarily fertile.
And perhaps that is why the Christian imagination has never stopped creating.
There will always be another writer.
Another manuscript.
Another painting.
Another poem.
Another film.
Another novel.
Another world waiting to be imagined.
Because Scripture contains an almost inexhaustible treasury of images.
The garden.
The serpent.
The staff.
The sapphire.
The rock.
The water.
The bronze.
The sword.
The Cross.
The tomb.
The Kingdom.
And finally—
the King.
The greatest Story has already been written.
Yet somehow, mysteriously, it still inspires countless new stories.
And perhaps somewhere tonight, another writer will open an old book, read one forgotten sentence, and suddenly see something nobody else has seen.
He will lean back.
His eyes will widen.
And he will whisper:
“What if…?”
And somewhere—
a new story will begin.
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Copyright © 2026 by William Van Zyl
The Metal Swallowed the Poison
All rights reserved. This eBook/article or any portion
thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
without the publisher’s permission, except for using brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Five House Publishing (New Zealand)
First published, September 2026
More eBooks and articles are available at https://fivehousepublishing.com/
More about the author at http://williamvanzyl.com/
