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The Darby Translation
Job 20:16
Bible Study Resources
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He will suck the poison of cobras;a viper’s fangs will kill him.
He shall suck cobra venom. The viper's tongue shall kill him.
He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him.
He will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of a viper will kill him.
They will suck the poison of snakes, and the snake's fangs will kill them.
He sucks the poison of serpents; the fangs of a viper kill him.
"He sucks the poison of vipers [which ill-gotten wealth contains]; The viper's tongue slays him.
"He sucks the poison of cobras; The viper's tongue kills him.
He shall suck cobra venom. The viper's tongue shall kill him.
He shall sucke the gall of Aspes, and the vipers tongue shall slay him.
He sucks the poison of cobras;The viper's tongue kills him.
He will suck the poison of cobras; the fangs of a viper will kill him.
They will die from the fangs of poisonous snakes
He sucks the poison of asps, the viper's fangs will kill him.
What he drank will be like a snake's poison; it will kill him like the bite of a deadly snake.
He shall suck the poison of asps; the tongue of an adder shall slay him.
What the evil people swallow is like poison; it kills them like the bite of a deadly snake.
He will suck the poison of horned vipers; the viper's tongue will kill him.
He shall suck the poison of asps; the viper's tongue shall slay him.
The serpentes heade shall sucke him, and the adders tonge shall slaye him:
He shall suck the poison of asps: The viper's tongue shall slay him.
He takes the poison of snakes into his mouth, the tongue of the snake is the cause of his death.
He shall suck the poison of asps; the viper's tongue shall slay him.
He shall sucke the poison of Aspes: the vipers tongue shall slay him.
He shall sucke the gall of serpentes, and the adders tongue shall slay him:
And let him suck the poison of serpents, and let the serpent’s tongue slay him.
He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him.
He schal souke the heed of snakis; and the tunge of an addre schal sle hym.
He shall suck the poison of cobras: The viper's tongue shall slay him.
He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him.
He will suck the poison of cobras; The viper's tongue will slay him.
They will suck the poison of cobras. The viper will kill them.
He will drink the poison of snakes. The snake's tongue will kill him.
They will suck the poison of asps; the tongue of a viper will kill them.
The poison of adders, shall he suck, The tongue of the viper shall slay him;
He shall suck the head of asps, and the viper’s tongue shall kill him.
He will suck the poison of asps; the tongue of a viper will kill him.
Gall of asps he sucketh, Slay him doth the tongue of a viper.
"He sucks the poison of cobras; The viper's tongue slays him.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
the poison: Romans 3:13
the viper's: Isaiah 30:6, Matthew 3:7, Acts 28:3-6
Reciprocal: Job 20:14 - the gall Psalms 58:4 - the deaf
Cross-References
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art [but] a dead man, because of the woman that thou hast taken; for she is a man's wife.
Did he not say to me, She is my sister? and she, even she said, He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and in the innocency of my hands have I done this.
And God said to him in a dream, I also knew that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart, and I, too, have withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore have I not suffered thee to touch her.
And Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and spoke all these words in their ears; and the men were greatly afraid.
And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, What hast thou done to us? And in what have I sinned against thee, that thou hast brought on me, and on my kingdom, a great sin? Thou hast done to me deeds that ought not to be done.
And she had said to the servant, Who is the man that is walking in the fields to meet us? And the servant said, That is my master! Then she took the veil, and covered herself.
And Abimelech charged all the people, saying, He that touches this man or his wife shall certainly be put to death.
Whoso loveth discipline loveth knowledge, but he that hateth reproof is brutish.
An ear-ring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, is a wise reprover upon an attentive ear.
Open rebuke is better than hidden love.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
He shall suck the poison of asps,.... Or "the head of asps" u; for their poison lies in their heads, particularly in their "teeth" w; or rather is a liquor in the gums, yellow like oil x; according to Pliny y, in copulation the male puts his head into the mouth of the female, which she sucks and gnaws off through the sweetness of the pleasure, then conceives her young, which eat out her belly; this is to be understood not of the man's sin, then it would have been expressed either in the past or present tense, as if that was sweet unto him in the commission of it, sucked in like milk from the breast, or honey from the honeycomb; such were his contrivances and artful methods, and the success of them in getting riches, but in the issue proved like the poison of asps, pernicious and deadly to him, which caused him to vomit them up again; for poison excites vomiting: but of the punishment of his sin; for putting men to death by the poison of asps was a punishment inflicted by some people upon malefactors; and however, it is certain death, and immediately and quickly dispatches, and without sense; so the wages of sin is death, and there is no avoiding it, and it comes insensibly on carnal men; they are not aware of it, and in no pain about it, until in hell they lift up their eyes as the rich man did:
the viper's tongue shall slay him; though it is with its teeth it bites, yet, when it is about to bite, it puts out its tongue, and to it its poison is sometimes ascribed; though it is said z to be quite harmless, and therefore not to be understood in a literal sense, but figuratively of the tongue of a detractor, a calumniator and false accuser, such an one as Doeg; but cannot be the sense here, since the fall of the person here described would not be by any such means; but the phrase, as before, denotes the certain and immediate death of such a wicked man; for the bite of a viper was always reckoned incurable, and issued in sudden death, see Acts 28:3.
u ראש פתנים "caput aspidum", V. L. Montanus. w Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 37. Aelian. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 4. x Philosoph. Transact. ut supra. (abridged, vol. 2. p. 819.) y Ib. c. 62. z Scheuchzer, ut supra, (Physic. Sacr. vol. 4.) p. 712.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
He shall suck the poison of asps - That which he swallowed as pleasant nutriment, shall become the most deadly poison; or the consequence shall be as if he had sucked the poison of asps. It would seem that the ancients regarded the poison of the serpent as deadly, however, it was taken into the system. They seem not to have been aware that the poison of a wound may be sucked out without injury to him who does it; and that it is necessary that the poison should mingle with the blood to be fatal.
The viper’s tongue shall slay him - The early impression probably was, that the injury done by a serpent was by the fiery, forked, and brandished tongue, which was supposed to be sharp and penetrating. It is now known, that the injury is done by the poison ejected through a groove, or orifice in one of the teeth, which is so made as to lie flat on the roof of the mouth, except when the serpent bites, when that tooth is elevated, and penetrates the flesh. The word “viper” here (אפעה 'eph‛eh), “viper,” is probably the same species of serpent that is known among the Arabs by the same name still - El Effah. See the notes at Isaiah 30:6. It is the most common and venomous of the serpent tribe in Northern Africa and in South-western Asia. It is remarkable for its quick and penetrating poison. It is about two feet long, as thick as a man’s arm, beautifully spotted with yellow and brown, and sprinkled over with blackish specks. They have a large mouth, by which they inhale a large quantity of air, and when inflated therewith, they eject it with such force as to be heard a considerable distance. “Jackson.” Capt. Riley, in his “Authentic Narrative,” (New York, 1817,) confirms this account. He describes the viper as the “most beautiful object in nature,” and says that the poison is so virulent as to cause death in fifteen minutes.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Job 20:16. He shall suck the poison of asps — That delicious morsel, that secret, easily-besetting sin, so palatable, and so pleasurable, shall act on the life of his soul, as the poison of asps would do on the life of his body.
The poison is called the gall of asps, it being anciently supposed that the poison of serpents consists in their gall, which is thought to be copiously exuded when those animals are enraged; as it has been often seen that their bite is not poisonous when they are not angry. Pliny, in speaking of the various parts of animals, Hist. Nat. lib. xi., c. 37, states, from this circumstance, that in the gall, the poison of serpents consists; ne quis miretur id (fel) venenum esse serpentum. And in lib. xxviii., c. 9, he ranks the gall of horses among the poisons: Damnatur (fel) equinum tantum inter venena. We see, therefore, that the gall was considered to be the source whence the poison of serpents was generated, not only in Arabia, but also in Italy.
