Of a quite different character are the penal de nunciations upon the serpent. If they be under stood literally, and of course applied to the whole order of Ophidia (as, we believe, is the common interpretation), they will be found to be so fla grantly at variance with the most demonstrated facts in their physiology and economy, as to lead to inferences unfavorable to belief in revelation. Let us examine the particulars:—'Because thou Nast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, above every behenuilt.' But the serpent tribe can not be classed with that of the behemoth. The word is of very frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, and though, in a few instances, it seems to be put for brevity so as to be inclusive of the flocks as well as the herds, and in poetical diction it sometimes stands metonymical)y tor ani mals generally (as Job xviii :3; Ps. :22; ECCIes, t8, t9, 2i); yet its proper and universal application is to the large animals (pachyderms and ruminants), such as the elephant, camel, deer, horse, ox, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, etc. (See BEHEMOTH.) As little will the declaration, 'cursed—,' agree with natural truth. It may, indeed, be supposed to be verified in the shuddering which persons gen erally feel at the aspect of any one of the order of serpents, but this takes place also in many other cases. It springs from fear of the formidable weapons with which some species are armed, as few persons know beforehand which are venomous and which are harmless; and, after all, this is rather an advantage than a curse to the animal. It is an effectual defense without effort. Indeed, we may say that no tribe of animals is so secure from danger, or is so able to obtain its sustenance and all the enjoyments which its capacity and hab its require, as the whole order of serpents. If, then, we decline to urge the objection from the word behemah, it is difficult to conceive that ser pents have more causes of suffering than any other great division of animals, or even so much.
Further, 'going upon the belly' is to none of them a punishment. With some differences of mode, their progression is produced by the push ing of scales, shields, or rings against the ground, by muscular contractions and dilatations, by elas tic springings, by vertical undulations, or by hori zontal wrigglings ; but, in every variety, the entire organization—skeleton, muscles, nerves, integu ments—is adapted to the mode of progression be longing to each species. That mode, in every variety of it, is sufficiently easy and rapid (often very rapid) for all the purposes of the animal's life and the amplitude of its enjoyments. To imagine this mode of motion to be, in any sense, a change from a prior attitude and habit of the erect kind, or being furnished with wings, indi cates a perfect ignorance of the anatomy of ser pents. Vet it has been said by learned and emi nent theological interpreters that, before this crime was committed, the serpent probably did 'not go upon his belly, but moved upon the hinder part of his body, with his head, breast and belly upright' (Clarke's Bible, p. Ir)oo). This notion may have obtained credence from the fact that sonic of the numerous serpent species, when excited, raises the neck pretty high; but the posture is to strike, and they cannot maintain it in creeping except for a very short distance.
Neither do they 'eat dust.' All serpents are carniverous; their food, according to the and power of the species, is taken from the tribes of insects, worms, frogs, and toads. and newts, birds,
mice and other small quadrupeds, till the scale ascends to the pythons and boas, which can was ter and swallow very large animals. The excel lent writer just cited. in his anxiety to do honor, as he deemed it. to the accuracy of Scripture allusions, has said of the serpent, 'Now that he creeps with his very mouth upon the earth, he must necessarily take his food out of the dust, and so lick in sonic of the dust with it.' But this is not the fact. Serpents habitually obtain their food among herbage or in water ; they seize their prey with the mouth, often elevate the are no noire exposed to the necessity of swallow ing adherent earth than are earniverons birds or quadrupeds. At the 'Me it may be under stood figuratively. 'Eating the dust' is but another term for groveling in the dust, and this is equiva lent to being reduced to a condition of meanness and contempt. (See Micah vii :17.) But these and other inconsistencies and diffi culties (insuperable they do indeed appear to us) are swept away when we consider the fact before stated that the Hebrew hannachash haialt, literally rendered, is the serpent was, etc., and that it refers specifically and personally to a rational and ac countable being, the spirit of lying and cruelty, the devil, the Satan, the old serpent. That God, the infinitely holy, good, and wise, should have permitted any one or more celestial spirits to apos tatize from purity, and to be the successful se ducers of mankind, is indeed an awful and over whelming mystery. But it is not more so than the permitted existence of many among mankind, whose rare talents and extraordinary command of power and opportunity, combined with extreme depravity, have rendered them the plague and curse of the earth, and the whole merges into the awful and insolvable problem, Why has the All-perfect Deity permitted evil at all? We are firmly assured that He will bring forth, at last, the most triumphant evidence that 'He is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works.' In the meantime our happiness lies in the implicit confidence which we cannot but feel to be due to the Being of Infinite Perfection.
(20) The Deliverer. The remaining part of the denunciation upon the false and cruel seducer sent a beam of light into the agonized hearts of our guilty first parents. 'And enmity will I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he will attack thee [on] the head, and thou wilt attack him [at] the heel.' The verb here used twice occurs in only two other places of the O. T.: Job ix :17, 'Who breaketh upon me with a tempestuous horror,' and Ps. cxxxix :1i, 'And if I say, Surely darkness will burst upon me,' i. e., as a sudden and impervious covering. The meaning is established by Gese nius after Umbreit as the idea of a violent and eager assault. Christian interpreters generally re gard this as the Protevangelium, the first gospel promise, and we think with good reason. It was a manifestation of mercy ; it revealed a Deliverer, who 'should be a human being, in a peculiar sense the offspring of the female, who should also, in some way not yet made known, counteract and remedy the injury inflicted, and who, though partially suffering from the malignant power, should, in the end, completely conquer it and con vert its very success into its own punishment' (J. Pye Smith, Scripture Testimony to the Mes siah, vol. i, p. 226).