The fiery flying serpent (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: ''sārāf mə‘ōfēf''; ; ) is a creature mentioned in the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...

in the

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

seraphim A seraph ( ; pl.: ) is a Angelic being, celestial or heavenly being originating in Ancient Judaism. The term plays a role in subsequent Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Tradition places seraphim in the highest rank in Christian angelology and ...

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

Biblical accounts

Book of Isaiah

* Isaiah 14:29: "Do not rejoice, all you of Philistia, 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"
. '' Nehushtan, is similar to the

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

Rod of Asklepios (frequently confused with the

caduceus The caduceus (☤; ; , ) is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was borne by other heralds like Iris (mythology), Iris, the messenger of Hera. The s ...

) and is frequently cited as an instance of the same

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

Identification

Ancient Israelite seals often co-opted symbology from neighbouring

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

, and as such, archaeologists have discovered numerous seals which show a uraeus 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'')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 (and close relatives), the desert black snake or black desert cobra, and the nematode '' Dracunculus medinensis''.

References

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

Biblical accounts

Book of Isaiah

Other sources

Identification

See also

References