The asp is a serpent whose bite brings death, and the Bible keeps it for pictures of poison. Deuteronomy 32:33 speaks of “the cruel venom of asps”, and Job 20 says the wicked will “suck the poison of asps”. Psalm 140:3 uses the same image for slander: “adders’ poison is under their lips”. Then Isaiah turns the picture around. In the peaceable kingdom “the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp” and nothing will hurt or destroy on God’s holy mountain. Read Isaiah 11:6-9 for that hope, then Psalm 140 for the danger it answers.
6 verses
Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. Selah.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
(Heb. pethen), Deut. 32:33; Job 20:14, 16; Isa. 11:8. It was probably the Egyptian cobra (Naja haje), which was very poisonous (Rom. 3:13; Gr. aspis). The Egyptians worshipped it as the uraeus, and it was found in the desert and in the fields. The peace and security of Messiah’s reign is represented by the figure of a child playing on the hole of the asp. (See ADDER.)
William Smith, 1884
(Heb. pethen), translated (adder in) (Psalms 58:4; 91:13) Probably the Egyptian cobra, a small and very poisonous serpent, a dweller in the holes of walls, (Isaiah 11:8) and a snake upon which the serpent-charmers practiced their art.