Adder in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Five times in the Old Testament KJV, and thrice in margin for "cockatrice" (Isaiah 11:8; Isaiah 14:29; Isaiah 59:5 ). Four Hebrew terms stand for it. (1) Akshub, (2) Pethen, (3) Tziphoni, and (4) Shephiphon. (1) Akshub, ("one that lies in ambush"), swells its skin, and rears its head back for a strike. Psalm 140:3 quoted in Romans 3:13, "the poison of asps." (2) Pethen, Psalm 58:4; Psalm 91:13, "adder" (compare margin), but elsewhere translated "asp"; from a Hebrew root "to expand the neck." The deadly haje naja, or cobra of Egypt, fond of concealing itself in walls and holes. Serpents are without tympanic cavity and external openings to the ear. The deaf adder is not some particular species; but whereas a serpent's comparative deafness made it more amenable to those sounds it could hear, in some instances it was deaf because it would not hear (Jeremiah 8:17; Ecclesiastes 10:11). So David's unrighteous adversaries, though having some little moral sense yet left to which he appeals, yet stifled it, and were unwilling to hearken to the voice of God...