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Bible Dictionaries
Cockatrice
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or צפעכּ? , or צפעו , Proverbs 23:32; Isaiah 11:8; Isaiah 14:29; Isaiah 59:5; Jeremiah 8:17 . A venomous serpent. The original Hebrew word has been variously rendered, the aspic, the regulus, the hydra, the hemorhoos, the viper, and the cerastes. In Isaiah 11:8 , this serpent is evidently intended for a proportionate advance in malignity beyond the peten which precedes it; and in Isaiah 14:29 , it must mean a worse kind of serpent than the nahash. In Isaiah 59:5 , it is referred to as oviparous. In Jeremiah 8:17 , Dr. Blaney, after Aquila, retains the rendering of basilisk. Bochart, who thinks it to be the regulus or basilisk, says that it may be so denominated by an onomatopoeia from its hissing; and accordingly it is hence called in Latin sibilus, "the hisser." So the Arabic saphaa signifies "flatu adurere," [to scorch with a blast.] The Chaldee paraphrast, the Syriac, and the Arabic, render it the hurman or horman; which rabbi Selomo on Genesis 49:17 , declares to be the tziphoni of the Hebrews: "Hurman vocatur species, cujus morsus est insanabilis. Is est Hebraeis tziphoni, et Chaldaice dicitur hurman, quia omnia facit הרם
vastationem; id est, quia omnia vastat, et ad internecionem destruit." [The species is called hurman, whose bite is incurable. It is the tziphoni of the Hebrews, and is called in Chaldee hurman, because it makes all things הרם —a waste; that is, because it lays waste and utterly destroys every thing.]
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Cockatrice'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/c/cockatrice.html. 1831-2.
