190 



CHAPTER IX. 



FOR behold, I wil send serpents and cockatrices among you, 

 which will not bee charmed : and they shall sting you, saith 

 the Lord. — Jerem. viii. 17. 



Such is the version given in Barker's Bible,* of the 

 passage which figuratively threatens the sending of the 

 Babylonians among the Jews, ' who,' as the old commen- 

 tator writes in the margin, ' shall utterly destroy them in 

 such sort, as by no meanes they shall escape/ 



The version now read in our churches runs thus, — 



For behold I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which 

 will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord ; 



and is more correct, zoologically speaking. 



What the serpents threatened were, is more apocry- 

 phal. The Greek version has ' basilisks.' Both basilisks 

 and cockatrices — at least those so-called venomous 

 creatures, of which such marvellous tales are to be found 

 in old authors — are fabulous creations. The Hebrew 

 word is Tsephuon or TsiiJlioni (Tsepha or Zepha), and 

 has been rendered as applicable to the aspic, the regulus 

 (another word for the basilisk), the hcemorrJioos, the 

 viper, and the cerastes. 



But whatever the species of serpents may be, the pas- 

 sage above cited, as well as others, which will readily 

 occur to the scriptural scholar, shows the great antiquity 

 of the art of charming serpents. Thus, in Psalm Iviii. we 

 have the following description of the wicked : — 



4. Their poyson is even like the poyson of a serpent : like the 

 deafe adder that stoppeth his eare. 



* 1615. 



