Slithery Slope Away from Innocence
The word for snake in Hebrew is נחש (nakhash) and it’s root is נ-ח-ש from which the verb ‘to guess’ (לנחש) also originates. At first, like many of the other Hebrew roots, seems an odd origin point. However, if one takes into consideration a third word, the word for ’sense’ which is חוש (khoosh), the link becomes much more apparent.
A snake, as anyone can attest, slithers about here and there all the while tongue flickering like an old film projector. As I recall from biology, the snake’s primary sense is its sense of smell which is of course interlaced with the sense of taste. The tongue, then, is the antenna which amplifies and relays sensations of the outer world to the snake.
The snake gets its name from its sensory function which is quite different from the english word ’snake’ which can be used as a verb to describe a zig-zagging motion.
While this is interesting, what I find more intriguing is that the snake that lured Adam and Eve to their downfall is also known as נחש. And, as much as Adam and Eve were punished for their explicit disobedience, the implicit reason for punishment is more fascinating.
As everyone knows, Adam and Eve were forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge (עץ הדעת). Before their fall, it can be assumed that they were in a state of perfect naivety and unity with the world around them. The snake is the vehicle by which they are expelled and by which they come to understand their nakedness.
The snake represents the ’sense’ or the ‘guess’ of Adam and Eve; their temptation is precipitated by their desire for understanding. The snake’s slithering movement is a clever metaphor for how one proceeds from innocence to uncertainty on the path to knowledge.
From a linguistic perspective, the story of the fall of Adam and Eve is a much richer and more fulfilling allegory. It isn’t simple disobedience, it isn’t even a ‘fall’, it is the courageous hunger for knowledge and self-awareness that is the basic essence of humanity and that which separates us from the rest of the creatures of the world.