Verse 16
16. The viper Eph’ha. Tristram ( Nat. Hist.) identifies it with the sand-viper, a species of small size, about a foot long, varying in colour and common in Arabia and Syria. He frequently found it in winter under stones by the shores of the Dead Sea. It is very rapid and active in its movements. Though highly poisonous, it is not so much dreaded as the fatal cobra or cerastes.
The viper’s tongue “Though biting with his teeth the viper appears to bite with the tongue, for it bites with tongue extended.” Hengstenberg. Not unlike the bite of the serpent, sin brings at once suffering and incipient death. Thus Plato corrects the saying of Hesiod, “that punishment closely follows sin;” it being, as he says, born at the same time with it. Whoever expects punishment already suffers it. Whoever has deserved it, expects it. (SENECA, Epis., 105.)
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