Job 20:16

16 Veneno de áspides chupará; lo matará lengua de víbora

Job 20:16 Meaning and Commentary

Job 20:16

He shall suck the poison of asps
Or "the head of asps" {u}; for their poison lies in their heads, particularly in their "teeth" ^F23; or rather is a liquor in the gums, yellow like oil ^F24; according to Pliny ^F25, in copulation the male puts his head into the mouth of the female, which she sucks and gnaws off through the sweetness of the pleasure, then conceives her young, which eat out her belly; this is to be understood not of the man's sin, then it would have been expressed either in the past or present tense, as if that was sweet unto him in the commission of it, sucked in like milk from the breast, or honey from the honeycomb; such were his contrivances and artful methods, and the success of them in getting riches, but in the issue proved like the poison of asps, pernicious and deadly to him, which caused him to vomit them up again; for poison excites vomiting: but of the punishment of his sin; for putting men to death by the poison of asps was a punishment inflicted by some people upon malefactors; and however, it is certain death, and immediately and quickly dispatches, and without sense; so the wages of sin is death, and there is no avoiding it, and it comes insensibly on carnal men; they are not aware of it, and in no pain about it, until in hell they lift up their eyes as the rich man did:

the viper's tongue shall slay him;
though it is with its teeth it bites, yet, when it is about to bite, it puts out its tongue, and to it its poison is sometimes ascribed; though it is said ^F26 to be quite harmless, and therefore not to be understood in a literal sense, but figuratively of the tongue of a detractor, a calumniator and false accuser, such an one as Doeg; but cannot be the sense here, since the fall of the person here described would not be by any such means; but the phrase, as before, denotes the certain and immediate death of such a wicked man; for the bite of a viper was always reckoned incurable, and issued in sudden death, see ( Acts 28:3-6 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 (Myntp var) "caput aspidum", V. L. Montanus.
F23 Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 37. Aelian. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 4.
F24 Philosoph. Transact. ut supra. (abridged, vol. 2. p. 819.)
F25 Ib. c. 62.
F26 Scheuchzer, ut supra, (Physic. Sacr. vol. 4.) p. 712.

Job 20:16 In-Context

14 su comida se mudará en sus entrañas, hiel de áspides será dentro de él

15 Comió haciendas, mas las vomitará; de su vientre las sacará Dios

16 Veneno de áspides chupará; lo matará lengua de víbora

17 No verá los arroyos, las riberas de los ríos de miel y de manteca

18 Restituirá el trabajo ajeno conforme a la hacienda que tomó; y no tragará, ni gozará