| Geneva Study Bible They hatch {d} eggs of an adder, and weave the spider's {e} web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. (d) Whatever comes from them is poison, and brings death. (e) They are profitable to no purpose. Wesley's Notes 59:5 Cockatrice eggs - One kind put for any venomous creature, a proverbial speech signifying by these eggs mischievous designs, and by hatching them, their putting them in practice. Web - Another proverbial speech whereby is taught, both how by their plots they weave nets, lay snares industriously with great pains and artifice. And also how their designs will come to nothing, as the spider's web is soon swept away. King James Translators' Notes cockatrice': or, adder's crushed...: or, sprinkled is as if there brake out a viper Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 5. cockatrice-probably the basilisk serpent, cerastes. Instead of crushing evil in the egg, they foster it. spider's web-This refers not to the spider's web being made to entrap, but to its thinness, as contrasted with substantial "garments," as Isa 59:6 shows. Their works are vain and transitory (Job 8:14; Pr 11:18). eateth . their eggs-he who partakes in their plans, or has anything to do with them, finds them pestiferous. that which is crushed-The egg, when it is broken, breaketh out as a viper; their plans, however specious in their undeveloped form like the egg, when developed, are found pernicious. Though the viper is viviparous (from which "vi-per" is derived), yet during gestation, the young are included in eggs, which break at the birth [Bochart]; however, metaphors often combine things without representing everything to the life. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 59:1-8 If our prayers are not answered, and the salvation we wait for is not wrought for us, it is not because God is weary of hearing prayer, but because we are weary of praying. See here sin in true colours, exceedingly sinful; and see sin in its consequences, exceedingly hurtful, separating from God, and so separating us, not only from all good, but to all evil. Yet numbers feed, to their own destruction, on infidel and wicked systems. Nor can their skill or craft, in devising schemes, as the spider weaves its web, deliver or save them. No schemes of self-wrought salvation shall avail those who despise the Redeemer's robe of righteousness. Every man who is destitute of the Spirit of Christ, runs swiftly to evil of some sort; but those regardless of Divine truth and justice, are strangers to peace. | 
