The Hebrew word here rendered cockatrice, is Tsepha, a species of serpent real and well known; but a cockatrice is a mere fabulous animal, supposed to be derived from the egg of a bird, brooded upon by a serpent, which never did exist. Bishop Lowth translates the passage thus:—
"They hatch the eggs of the basilisk,
And weave the web of the spider."
Whatever may be the precise animal intended by the cockatrice, or basilisk, it is evidently of the serpent tribe, poisonous, and deadly; this appears from what is said of the egg of the cockatrice, when crushed, breaking out into a viper. Vipers are poisonous serpents; their bite is deadly, and the females produce their young ones alive, from eggs which are hatched within their own body. This seems to account for the expression that the egg, when crushed, "breaketh out into a viper." How truly does the prophet describe by these words the condition of the wicked, shewing that all their labours are but treacherous and worthless. The evils in the will give birth to false and deadly persuasions in the understanding; and while the one hatches the eggs, the other weaves the web. The deadly evils which generate in the hearts of the wicked are signified by the eggs of the serpent which they lay: the germs of their evils are imbedded in their will, concealed in their inmost affections, and nourished by their life's love, as eggs are nourished and hatched in the very body of the viper. The false reasonings which they artfully fabricate, in order to conceal the evils within, until opportunity offers to bring them forth, are meant by the web of the spider,
