Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
Ver. 13. The poison of the asps] Of that sort of asps that spit their venom far from them upon the bystanders. (πρυαδες .) There is a great deal of such vermin and venom in that newly found world of wickedness, the tongue, James 3:6. It is easy to observe that St Paul here, making the anatomy of a natural man, stands more on the organs of speaking than all other members, and showeth how his tongue is tipped with fraud, his lips tainted with venom, his mouth full of gall, his throat a gaping grave, his tongue as a rapier to run men through with, and his throat as a sepulchre to bury them in. As for the asp, they write of her, That whereas her poison is so deadly, that the part infected cannot be cured but by cutting off, succurrit periclitantibus benignior natura, et noxiosissimo animali caliginosos obtutus dedit. (Jo. Wover.) Aspidi (saith Pliny, viii. 23) hebetes oculi dati, eosque non in fronte, sed in temporibus habet.