The Good and Evil Serpent (120 page)
Read The Good and Evil Serpent Online
Authors: James H. Charlesworth
While the “serpent” symbolically was multivalent—representing both positive and negative concepts—the “dragon” (which frequently meant “serpent”) as a dragon represented the demonic (as in the Babylonian Tiamat and Labbu, the Egyptian Apophis, the Persian Azi-Dahaka, and the Greek Python).
A background for the Hebrew
tnnin
is the Ugaritic
tnn;
note this passage:
| H | 37 | I muzzled Tannin [tnn] 208 [the Sea Dragon], yea, I muzzled him, |
| | 38 | smote the Crooked Serpent [btn] , |
| | 39 | the monster of seven heads. 209 |
Again, the synonymous
parallelismus membrorum
indicates a similarity between the “Tannin” and “the Crooked Serpent.” The compilers of the
Perek Shirah
have the
saying: “Praise God from the land, the sea monsters and all the depths” (Ps 148:7).
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Summary
We have discovered that there are eighteen words, certainly not
termini technici
, for snake or serpent, in the Hebrew Bible. Here is the summary:
| Term | Translation | Major Biblical Passage | Symbol |
1. | “sand viper” | Isa 30:6, 59:5 | N |
2. | “snake” | Deut 33:22 | ? |
| | | Ps 68:23[22] | N |
3. | “snakes of the earth” | Mic 7:17; cf. Deut 32:24 | P for Israel |
4. | “Leviathan” | Isa 27:1 | N |
| | | Job 3:8; 40:25 [41:1] | N |
| | | Ps 74:14 | B? |
5. | “serpent” | Gen 3:1 | P |
| | | Gen 49:17, Ps 140:4[3] | N |
| | | Exod 4:3, 7:15; Num 21:7 | P |
| | | Prov 23:31, Ps 58:5[4] | N |
| | | Isa 14:29 | P for Israel |
6. | “bronze serpent” | Num 21:4–9 | P |
7. | “asp” | Ps 140:3[4] | N |
8. | “cobra” | Ps 91:13 | N |
9. | “pit viper” | Isa 14:29 | P for Israel |
10. | “viper” | Prov 23:32 | N |
11. | “arrow-snake” | Isa 34:15 | N for Israel |
12. | “Rahab” | Ps 89:11, Isa 51:9–11 | N |
| | | Job 9:13–14, 26:12–13 | N |
13. | “burning-serpent” | Isa 14:29 | P for Israel |