Spider

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SPIDER

SPIDER (Heb. ??????????, akkavish). Isaiah (59:5–6) compares the evil designs of those who plot against the righteous to the webs which the spider spins to trap insects, while Job (8:14–15) compares the house of the wicked to the spider's fragile web. There are hundreds of species of spider in Israel, all having poisonous glands in their maxillaries. The poison in most spiders is a mild one, but there are species capable of killing a bird or a mouse. It would appear that the akhshuv (Ps. 140:4) which is mentioned together with the snake as a poisonous animal is merely the akkavish with the letters transposed. The Tosefta (Par. 9:6) enumerates it among the species of spiders. Some erroneously identify the spider with the semamit (Prov. 30:28) which is the *gecko.

bibliography:

Lewysohn, Zool, 299–301, nos. 400 and 401; F.S. Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands (1960), 116, nos. 336–40; J. Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962), 135.

[Jehuda Feliks]

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