Verse 3
3. Sharpened their tongues like a serpent The description is that of a serpent darting out his tongue before inflicting the wound. Roberts: “See him: his head is erect, and his piercing eye is wildly and fiercely fixed on the object; the tongue rapidly appears and disappears, as if by that process it would be sharpened for the contest.” The Hebrew word here rendered adder, would seem to be used in a general way to signify a serpent of some kind, but not determinate as to species. As a compound word the two parts together would signify, according to Gesenius, to coil up and to lie in wait, which might apply to various species, but specially to the cerastes, or horned adder, a dangerous wayside serpent, alluded to Genesis 49:17. Others apply it to the toxicoa, so well known in northern Africa, also in Palestine and Syria.
Poison… under their lips The secreted poison at the root of the serpent’s fang, which is injected, by a peculiar muscular apparatus, into the wound caused by the bite. A fit emblem of a malignant slanderer.
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