Serpents (
nāḥāš) are referred to in both the
Hebrew Bible and the
New Testament. The
symbol of a serpent or
snake played important roles in religious and cultural life of
ancient Egypt,
Canaan,
Mesopotamia and
Greece. The serpent was a symbol of evil power and
chaos from the
underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life and healing.
Nachash,
Hebrew for "snake", is also associated with
divination, including the verb-form meaning to practice divination or fortune-telling. In the Hebrew Bible,
Nachash occurs in the
Torah to identify the serpent in
Eden. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, it is also used in conjunction with
saraph to describe vicious serpents in the wilderness.
Tanniyn, a form of dragon-monster, also occurs throughout the Hebrew Bible. In the
Book of Exodus, the staffs of
Moses and
Aaron are turned into serpents, a
nachash for Moses, a
tanniyn for Aaron. In the New Testament, the
Book of Revelation makes use of
ancient serpent and
the Dragon several times to identify
Satan or the
devil. (; )