COBRA AND CERASTES, THE ASP AND ADDER OF SCRIPTURE.
"They are like the deaf asp (marginal translation) that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely."—Ps. lviii. 4, 5.
"Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path."—Gen. xlix. 17.
The idea that the poison of the Serpent lies in the tongue is seen in several passages of Scripture. "They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips" (Ps. cxl. 3). Also in Job xx. 16, the sacred writer says of the hypocrite, that "he shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him."
As to the fiery Serpents of the wilderness, it is scarcely needful to mention that the epithet of "fiery" does not signify that the Serpents in question produced real fire from their mouths, but that allusion is made to the power and virulence of their poison, and to the pain caused by their bite. We ourselves naturally employ a similar metaphor, and speak of a "burning pain," of a "fiery trial," of "hot anger," and the like.
The epithet of "flying" which is applied to these Serpents is explained by the earlier commentators as having reference to a Serpent which they called the Dart Snake, and which they believed to lie in wait for men and to spring at them from a distance. They thought that this snake hid itself either in hollows of the ground or in trees, and sprang through the air for thirty feet upon any man or beast that happened to pass by.
"And surely if it be lawful to conjecture what kinds of Serpents those were which in the Scripture were called Fiery Serpents, and did sting the Israelites to death in the Wildernesse, until the Brazen Serpent was erected for their cure; among all the Serpents in the world, that kind of death and pain can be ascribed to none more properly than to these Cafezati, or Red-dart Serpents.
"For first, the Wildernesse, which was the place wherein they annoyed the people, doth very well agree to their habitation. Secondly, the Fiery Serpents are so called by figure, not that they are fiery, but, as all Writers do agree, either because they were red like fire; or else because the pain which they inflicted did burn like fire, or rather for both these causes together, which are joyntly and severally found in these Red Serpents. And therefore I will conclude for my opinion, that these Serpents (as the highest poyson in nature) were sent by God to afflict the sinning Israelites, whose poyson was uncurable, except by Divine miracle."
The places in which the Serpent is accustomed to lie are mentioned in various portions of the Old Testament. The habit of lying in hedges is mentioned in Ecclesiastes. "He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him" (Eccles. x. 8). The Prophet Amos alludes to its custom of haunting the walls of houses (see v. 18, 19): "The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.
"As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him." This passage refers also to the ordinary architecture of the East, the walls of common houses, such as those with which a herdman like Amos would be most familiar, being little more than hurdles covered with mud. Such walls would soon fall into disrepair, and would be full of holes, in which spiders, centipedes, lizards, and serpents hide themselves.