– In antiquity, it represented sea monsters, asps, snakes and dragons. In the Bible, she is presented as subject to God:
Is 27,1 : Leviathan, the fleeting dragon, Leviathan, the crooked dragon; and he will kill the monster that is in the sea.
Job 3:8 : May those who curse the day curse her, those who are able to summon Leviathan!
Job 26,10-13 : His breath swept the heavens and his hand smote the fleeing serpent.
Ps 73,13-14 : Your power opened the sea, you crushed the heads of dragons in the waters.
– He began to indicate evil, the enemy, danger, the devil and his cunning:
Gen 3,1-2.14 : The serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had formed.
Gen 49:17 : Dan will be a serpent on the road, a snake on the road.
Wis 2:24 : It is through the envy of the devil that death entered the world, and those who belong to the devil will taste it.
Ps 57,5-6 : Similar to that of serpents is its venom, like the venom of a deaf viper that closes its ears.
Pr 23:32 : But in the end it bites like a serpent and stings like a basilisk!
Jr 8,17 : I will send serpents against you, and vipers insensible to enchantments, which will bite you.
Ez 29,3-6 : It is against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that I come; monstrous crocodile, that you are lying in the middle of your Niles.
Mq 7,17 : They will lick the dust like serpents, like the reptiles of the earth.
Rev 12:9 : Then the great Dragon, the primeval Serpent, called the Devil and Satan, was thrown down.
Rev 20,2-3 : He caught the Dragon, the primitive Serpent, who is the Devil and Satan.
– In the desert, God tells Moses to suspend a bronze serpent on a pole so that those bitten by fiery serpents would look at it and be cured:
Num 21,4-9 : Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, which bit and killed many.
– As mentioned in:
Jn 3:14 : As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
– And the comparison with the crucified Christ:
Jn 8:28 : When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know who I am and that I do nothing on my own.
Jn 12:32 : And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself.
– The missionaries of Jesus received from him the power to overcome evil:
Lk 10:19 : Behold, I have given you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enemy.
Psalm 90:13 : On serpent and adder thou shalt walk, lion and dragon shalt thou trample underfoot.
