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Animals of the Bible
Serpent
Hebrew nachash · Greek ophis, echidna (viper) · vipers and cobras
Snakes were a daily danger in the Bible lands. The most common venomous snake of Israel today is the Palestine viper, which lives near fields and houses; the deserts have horned vipers, and Egypt has the cobra. Biblical Hebrew has several words for snakes, and the commonest, nachash, may imitate a snake’s hiss. Snake charmers were well known (Psalm 58:4–5; Ecclesiastes 10:11), and in Egypt a rearing cobra, the uraeus, decorated the pharaoh’s crown as a sign of royal power.
The serpent of Genesis 3 is “more crafty” than any other creature, and with Balaam’s donkey it is one of only two animals that speak in the Bible. Moses’ staff becomes a snake, and in the wilderness Moses makes a bronze snake on a pole; centuries later King Hezekiah broke it up because people were burning incense to it (2 Kings 18:4). On Malta a viper fastened on Paul’s hand as he gathered sticks for a fire.
Key verses
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”“Throw it on the ground,” said the LORD. So Moses threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, and he ran from it.Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. If anyone who was bitten looked at the bronze snake, he would live.He removed the high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze snake called Nehushtan that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had burned incense to it.Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.Paul gathered a bundle of sticks, and as he laid them on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself to his hand. When the islanders saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “Surely this man is a murderer. Although he was saved from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” But Paul shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no ill effects.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Animals: Snake; Serpent
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
