The Good and Evil Serpent (119 page)

The Hebrew noun
,
sh
^e
phiphdn
, can denote an “adder,”
¹⁹⁷
as well as any type of viper including the horned viper.
¹⁹⁸
According to Genesis 49:17, Dan shall guard Israel, being like the adder that causes one on a horse to fall. It is not easy to discern which type of poisonous snake this noun denoted, since the word is a
hapax legomenon
in Genesis 49:17 and there had not evolved a taxonomy for serpents when the author wrote these words.
¹⁹⁹
That is, as we have seen, there are numerous words in biblical Hebrew to designate a snake, but they were used sometimes interchangeably.

The sound of the Hebrew,
sh
^e
phiphdn
, seems to be onomatopoeic; thus, the one who originated this noun probably was trying to imitate a
hissing
serpent. The Greek translator probably did not know what type of snake the author had in mind, and rendered]9’
with the generic octnq. The translator of the Peshitta chose “basilisk” or “cockatrice” (
).
²⁰⁰
H. R. Cohen draws attention to the fact that]9’
certainly denotes a snake, since it is cognate with Akkadian
sibbu/ sippu
that are included in the lexical snake list.
²⁰¹

18. ,	“dragon” 202	Ps 91:13, Job 3:8	N
203	“dragons”	Ps 74:13, Deut 32:33	N

This noun denotes the mythical serpent that shall be trampled in the future (Ps 91:13).
²⁰⁴
While the etymological derivation of
is uncertain, it may be related to the Aramaic noun
, “fish.”
²⁰⁵
Perhaps, since the verbal root of
means “to wail” (cf. Jud 11:40), the noun may have originated with sailors who, at sea, heard from the deep the sounds of the whale.

Psalm 91:13, as we saw earlier, indicates that “dragon” is a good choice for
. The translators of the Septuagint chose, in Psalm 91:13, the noun SpaKovta.
²⁰⁶
The translators of the New King James Version (1982), which is part of
The Hebrew Scriptures: Hebrew and English
, offered this attractive rendering of Psalm 91:13:

You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra,

The young lion and the serpent (
) you shall trample underfoot.
²⁰⁷

The parallelism of the poetry, which is synonymous, indicates that
is similar to “the cobra.”