The fiery flying serpent (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: ''sārāf mə‘ōfēf'') is a creature mentioned in the Book of Isaiah in the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''

seraphim, the singular form of which is also ''saraph''.

Biblical accounts

Book of Isaiah

* Isaiah 6:2: "Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly." * Isaiah 14:29: "Do not rejoice, all you of

Philistia Philistia (; Koine Greek ( LXX): Γῆ τῶν Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''gê tôn Phulistieìm''), also known as the Philistine Pentapolis, was a confederation of cities in the Southwest Levant, which included the cities of Ashdod, Ash ...

, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the serpent's roots will come a viper, and its offspring will be a fiery flying serpent." * Isaiah 30:6: "The burden against the beasts of the South. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from which came the lioness and the lion, the viper and the fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who shall not profit."

Other sources

References to "fiery serpents" lacking a mention of flight can be found in several places in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

. * "Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;" * "(6) And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. (7) Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. (8) And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." This symbol, the Nehushtan, is similar to the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

Rod of Asklepios (frequently confused with the

caduceus The caduceus (☤; ; la, cādūceus, from grc-gre, κηρύκειον "herald's wand, or staff") is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was also ...

) and is frequently cited as an instance of the same

archetype The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ...

Identification

Ancient Israelite seals often co-opted symbology from neighbouring ancient Egypt, and as such, archaeologists have discovered numerous seals which show a

uraeus The Uraeus (), or Ouraeus (Ancient Greek: , ; Egyptian: ', "rearing cobra"), ''(plural: Uraei)'' is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian cobra, used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority in ancient Egypt. Symbol ...

cobra with 4 wings. This, coupled with the fact that these cobras diverge from the typical Egyptian iconography which depicted them with only 2 wings, have been connected by some to the "fiery flying serpents" mentioned in Isaiah, or even to the more specific ''seraphim'' seen elsewhere in the text. This identification, however, is not universally accepted. Assuming the fiery flying serpent to have a biological identification, Ronald Millett and John Pratt identify it with the Israeli saw-scale viper or carpet viper (''

Echis coloratus ''Echis coloratus'', known as the painted saw-scaled viper,Mallow D, Ludwig D, Nilson G. 2003. ''True Vipers: Natural History and Toxinology of Old World Vipers''. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company. 359 pp. . painted carpet viper, Burt ...

'')McDiarmid RW, Campbell JA, Touré T. 1999. ''Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, Volume 1''. Washington, District of Columbia: Herpetologists' League. 511 pp. (series). (volume). based on several clues from the written sources, such as that the serpents inhabit the Arava Valley, prefer rocky terrain, and are deadly venomous. A Roman account dated 22 AD about the deserts of Arabia indicates the presence of the saw-scale viper, reporting that "there are snakes also of a dark red color, a span in length, which spring up as high as a man's waist, and whose bite is incurable." Other candidates include

desert horned viper ''Cerastes cerastes'', commonly known as the Saharan horned viperMallow D, Ludwig D, Nilson G. (2003). ''True Vipers: Natural History and Toxinology of Old World Vipers''. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company. . or the desert horned viper ...

(and close relatives), the desert black snake or black desert cobra, and the nematode Dracunculiasis.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiery Flying Serpent Snakes in religion Mythological monsters Dragons Animals in mythology Serpents in the Bible Book of Isaiah Jewish legendary creatures

Biblical accounts

Book of Isaiah

Other sources

Identification

See also

References