We will now take the various species of Serpents mentioned in the Bible, as nearly as they can be identified.
Of one species there is no doubt whatever. This is the Cobra (Naja haje), a serpent which is evidently signified by the Hebrew word pethen.
There are several passages in which this word occurs, nearly all of which contain some allusion to its poisonous nature, and one of them mentioning a characteristic which settles its identity beyond doubt.
In the very beginning of the Scriptural books we find a reference to the Pethen. The first occurs in Deut. xxxii. 33: "Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
"Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps" (pethenim).
Next we come to the passage in Job xx. 14-16: "Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps (pethenim) within him.
"He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.
"He shall suck the poison of asps (pethenim): the viper's (epheh) tongue shall slay him."
These passages clearly indicate the venomous nature of the Pethen, and there is another which occurs in Isaiah, in which the same quality is inferred though not directly stated. It occurs in chap. xi., which is devoted to a prophecy of the spiritual reign of the Messiah, and in which is found that allusion to Himself which our Lord quoted in the Temple (see ver. 2). The passage with which we have now to do occurs in verse 8: "And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp (pethen), and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den."