Bible Dictionary
Spider
The spider’s web is used in Scripture as a picture of frailty, false confidence, and useless human works. The creature translated “spider” in Proverbs may instead be a kind of lizard.
Definition
A spider is a small creature known for producing a web or dwelling made of web. In the biblical terminology, the word translated “spider” in Job and Isaiah refers to the spider, while the different creature named in Proverbs is probably a lizard, specifically a gecko.
Biblical Usage
The spider’s web represents frailty, vain confidence, and useless works. The trust of the hypocrite is compared with a spider’s house, while the works and designs of the wicked are likened to a web that cannot serve as clothing or covering.
Historical Background
Many kinds of spiders were found in Palestine, including web-spinning, ground-hunting, and burrowing forms. The precise identification of the creature in Proverbs differs from the term used in Job and Isaiah.
Scripture References
Related Figures
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
The trust of the hypocrite is compared to the spider’s web or house (Job 8:14). It is said of the wicked by Isaiah that they “weave the spider’s web” (59:5), i.e., their works and designs are, like the spider’s web, vain and useless. The Hebrew word here used is ’akkabish, “a swift weaver.” In Prov. 30:28 a different Hebrew word (semamith) is used. It is rendered in the Vulgate by stellio, and in the Revised Version by “lizard.” It may, however, represent the spider, of which there are, it is said, about seven hundred species in Palestine.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
The Hebrew word ’accabish in (Job 8:24; Isaiah 59:5) is correctly rendered “spider.” Put semamith is wrongly translated “spider” in (Proverbs 30:28) it refers probably to some kind of lizard. (But “there are many species of spider in Palestine: some which spin webs, like the common garden spider; some which dig subterranean cells and make doors in them, like the well-known trap-door spider of southern Europe; and some which have no web, but chase their prey upon the ground, like the hunting-and the wolf-spider.”—Wood’s Bible Animals.)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>spi'-der</p><p>(1) `akkabhish; compare Arabic `ankabut, English Versions of the Bible "spider"; Septuagint arachne (Job 8:14; Isa 59:5);</p><p>(2) semamith, "lizard," the King James Version "spider"; Septuagint kalabotes (Pr 30:28)): Semamith of Pr 30:28 is probably the gecko, a kind of lizard, as Septuagint and the Revised Version (British and American) have it. See LIZARD.</p><p>In Job 8:14 the spider's web is an emblem of frailty: "Whose confidence shall break in sunder, and whose trust is a spider's web." Frailty or futility seems to be indicated also in Isa 59:5,6: "They hatch adders' eggs, and weave the spider's web: .... Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works" "Spider's web" is in Job 8:14 both `akkabhish, "spider's house," while in Isa 59:5 it is qure `akkabhish, qur, according to BDB, being "thread" or "film."</p><p>Alfred Ely Day</p>