5. Epheh (ns^SX; Sept. o^ic, cKJirig, fiamXiuKOQ) oc- curs in Job XX, 16; Isa. xxx, 6; and lix, 5, in all of which passages the A. V. has "viper." There is no scriptural allusion by means of which it is possible to determine tiie species of serpent indicated by the Heb. term, which is derived from a root which signifies "to hiss." Shaw (Trav. p. 251) speaks of some poisonous snake which the Arabs call leffah (el-eff\th) : " it is the most malignant of the tribe, and rarely above a foot long." Jackson also {Morocco, p. 110) mentions this serpent; from his description it would seem to be the Algerine adder {Echidna cn-ktans var. Mauritanic(i). The snake {txtSva) that fastened on Paul's hand when he was at Melita (Acts xxviii, 3) was probably the common viper {Pelias hems), which is widely distrib- uted throughout Europe and the islands of the Mediter- ranean, or else the Vipera aspis,a not uncommon species on the coasts of the same sea. See Viper.
6. Tsepha, or Tsiphoni (3-'S!J, ""ilS'S^; Sept. tKyova t'i(nri8wv, Kepd(TTi](;), occurs five times in the Hebrew Bible. In Prov. xxiii, 32 it is translated " adder," and in the three passages of Isaiah quoted above, as well as in Jer. viii, 17, it is rendered "cockatrice." The deriva- tion of the word from a root which means " to hiss" does not help us at all to identify the animal. From Jere- miah we learn that it was of a hostile nature, and from the parallelism of Isa. xi, 8 it appears that the tsiphoni was considered even more dreadful than the pethen. Bochart, in his fJieroz. (iii, 182, ed. Kosenmiiller), has endeavored to prove that the tsiphoni is the basilisk of the Greeks (whence Jerome in Vulg. reads regulus), which was then supposed to destroy life, burn up grass, and break stones by the pernicious influence of its breath (comp. Pliny, FI.N. viii,. 33); but this is explaining an " ignotum per ignotius."
The whole story of the basilisk is involved in fable, and it is in vain to attempt to discover the animal to which the ancients attributed such terrible power. It is curious to observe, however, that Forskiil {Descr. Animal, p. 15) speaks of a kind of serpent {Coluber hol- leik is the name he gives it) which he says produces irritation on the spot touched by its breath; he is quot- ing, no doubt, the opinion of the Arabs. Is this a relic of the basiliskan fable? This creature was so called from a mark on its head, supposed to resemble a kingly • crown. Several serpents, however, have peculiar mark- ings on the head — the varieties of the spectacle-cobras of Inilia, for example — so that identification is impossi- ble. As the Sept. makes use of the word basilisk (Psa. xc, 13; xci, 13 A. V.), it was thought desirable to say this much on the sidyect. The ba. disk of naturalists is a most forbidding-looking yet harmless lizard of the family I</uanidw, order Saiiria. In using the term, therefore, care must Ije taken not to confound tlie myth- ical serpent with the verilable Saurian. Basilisk is an indefinite English name, which belongs to no idcntitied serpent, and now appears only in the works of ancient compilers and heralds, where it is figured with a crest, though tliere is no really crested or frilled species known to exist ill the whole Ophidian order. Created soriients occur, it is true, on Greek and Etruscan vases; but they
are invariably mythological representations, probably derived from descriptive rumors of the hooded najas, cei-astes, and perhajis murana ; the first of these having what may be likened to a turbaned, the other to a coro- nated head, and the third fins at the operculum. But it is from the apparently crowned form that the de- nominations of basilisk and regulus were derived. See Basilisk.
It is possible that the tsiphoni may be represented by the Algerine adder {Clotho Mauritanica), but it must be confessed that this is mere conjecture. Dr. Harris, in his Natural History of the Bible, erroneously sup- poses it to be identical with the Rajah zephen of For- skal, which, however, is a fish {TrUjon zephen, Cuv.), and not a serpent. See Cockathick.
Algeiiue Adder (Clotho Mauritanica).
7. Shephiphon ('QiSir; Sept. t-yfca^/jjttfi'oc ) occurs only in Gen. xlix, 17, where it is used to characterize the tribe of Dan: "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall backwards." Various are the readings of the old versions in this passage : the Samar- itan interprets shephiphon by "Ij'ing in wait ;" the Tar- gums of Jonathan, of Onkelos, and of Jerusalem, with the Syriac, "a basilisk" ("'Q'Tin, churmon, destructive'). The Arabic interpreters Erpenius and Saadias have " the horned snake ;" and so the Vulg. cerastes. The Sept., like the iSamaritan, must have connected the He- brew terra with a word which expresses the idea of "sitting in ambush." The original word comes from a root (C]SIIJ) which signifies "to prick," " pierce," or " bite."
The habit of the shephiphon alluded to in Jacob's prophecy — namely, that of lurking in the sand and bit- ing at the horse's heels — suits the character of a well- known species of venomous snake, the celebrated horned viper, the asp of Cleopatra {Cerastes Hasselquistii), which is found abundantly in the sandy deserts of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia. The Hebrew word shephi- phon is no doubt identical with the Arabic sijfon. If the translation of this Arabic word by (jlolius be com- pared with the description of the ceirisies in the Brit- ish Museum, there will appear good reason for identify- ing the shephiphon of Genesis with the cerastes of