For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” A poem by David.
1Do you indeed speak righteousness, silent ones?
Do you judge blamelessly, you sons of men?
2No, in your heart you plot injustice.
You measure out the violence of your hands in the earth.
3The wicked go astray from the womb.
They are wayward as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
4Their poison is like the poison of a snake,
like a deaf cobra that stops its ear,
5which doesn’t listen to the voice of charmers,
no matter how skillful the charmer may be.
6Break their teeth, God, in their mouth.
Break out the great teeth of the young lions, Yahweh.
7Let them vanish like water that flows away.
When they draw the bow, let their arrows be made blunt.
8Let them be like a snail which melts and passes away,
like the stillborn child, who has not seen the sun.
9Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns,
he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.
10The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance.
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,
11so that men shall say, “Most certainly there is a reward for the righteous.
Most certainly there is a God who judges the earth.”
Snakes, or serpents, and other reptiles similar to snakes that are not lizards. In the Bible there are several different species of snakes. In most cultures snakes and humans do not coexist but in ancient Egypt a snake indicated "life, health, and immortality."
The book of Numbers speaks of a plague of snakes, the cure from Yahweh was for Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. If a person was bitten by a serpent, the person who looked at the serpent was healed. (Num 21:6-7, 9). In the days of Hezekiah, the bronze serpent that was made by Moses was destroyed since the people of Israel had been burning incense to it.
Among the various words used in the Bible, the word nāḥāš is used in a generic sense, though it would probably speak of a poisonous snake. The cobra and the adder, also known as a viper, represent these types of poisonous serpents. The Egyptian cobra (Naja haje) refers to the snake who was used by snake charmers, in contrast to the desert cobra (Walterinnesia aegyptia) in Israel as seen in Psalms 58:4-5, and the tribe of Dan is compared to a viper in Genesis 49:17. Some believe that the horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) is intended in Psalms 58:4-5, since it has the habit of hiding in the sand.
Jeremiah 8:17 refers to the Palestine viper (Vipera palaestinae) that is not able to be charmed and is in the desert.
The serpent represents the enemy of God and the people of God in Genesis 3:1, 14-15, and in Revelation 12:9 speaks of the dragon, the serpent compared to Satan.
Much of this article is based on the work of Walter W. Ferguson, Living Animals of the Bible, pp. 68-69, and David Darom, Animals of the Bible: from the Lion to the Snail, pp. 30-31.