It seems it can mean snake though:
H5175 - nachash
e.g. Exodus 4:3
Isaiah 65:25 talks about animals including a serpent eating dust, suggesting that the mention of the serpent eating dust in Genesis 3:14 is about an animal. Micah 7:17 also talks about a serpent licking dust.
See:
Snakes do eat dust! - creation.com
Have a look at this webste, biblehub.com:
Isaiah 65:25 Interlinear: Wolf and lamb do feed as one, And a lion as an ox eateth straw, As to the serpent -- dust is its food, They do no evil, nor destroy, In all My holy mountain, said Jehovah!
Can you see, when you go to any chapter and verse, and click on the "interlinear" tab, then you can see the original Hebrew words. In this case, it is the same word in Isaiah 65:25 as in Genesis 3: nachash. So it is the same serpent that we are talking about.
What I am showing you is that in the Hebrew alphabet, the letters are literally pictures, and the pictures have meanings. Then what we find is that the meaning of the word is a conclusion of the series of pictures, so in that way, we can look at the meaning of each individual letter and understand a much deeper expression of the word. That doesn't exist in the English language.
There is a PDF chart that lists all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, naming and listing a few key words that correspond to describe what that letter means. Check it out:
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/docs/28_chart.pdf
So look at this for an example:
Nahash is made up of three letters, just the consonants without vowels:
N (נ) .... (seed) Continue, heir, son, seed
Ch (ח) .... (tent wall) Outside, Divide, Half
Sh (ש) .... (two front teeth) Sharp, Press, Eat, Two
So, you can see that what they are expressing through the spelling of the serpent "Nachash", is a thing whose seed grows to divide and put up a barrier, and then to consume .. and it explains a lot when we look at how that is happening through the resentment for sin that people do, and how mercy and trust are really the keys to breaking down that barrier, restoring the humanity of man.
When we read that "few find the narrow gate leading to life while many take the broad road leading to destruction", and "if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, for they cannot see what we preach, for the god of this world has blinded them" - and "we are of God. Whoever knows God hears us, but whoever is not from God doesn't listen to us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error". (2 Corinthians 4:3-4 && 1 John 4:6).
.. can you see, then, that this serpent has put a seed in the world that grows into a thing that contends with the seed of the woman, to cut-off and to devour? .. think on that while reading John 10:10!
Now what I'm looking at is the dust. According to Isaiah's prophecy, the nachash will eat dust in the end.. so what is that dust that he is going to eat? I found that quite interesting too, because it's the same word in Genesis 3:19 ("for you are but dust, and you shall return to be dust"), that is "
aphar": (eye, mouth, chief): "
what we see and know" "
is an expression" "
the chief origin".
Therefore the ancient Hebrews thought of dust as the chief origin of all that we see and know as an expression (ie: "life"), but not as in the same word as "
haadamah" (the ground): the "
mighty door mighty unknown behold!". That's interesting. It's a way of thinking about the dirt and the ground that doesn't naturally carry such fullness of meaning in plain English words. But now it does, hooray!
It's most interesting to find that it's the same word used in Genesis 28:14.. so there's an added dimension in this that we just aren't getting by being thinkers of a modern English mind
Now I am really enjoying these pictographs so I'm most interested to look at Leviathan next, because we know that is the other serpent-like creature, that's sometimes said to be a dragon or a dinosaur.
.. So keep Nachash in mind: He plants a seed that divides/blocks and consumes.
Leviathan:
"In day that will punish Yahweh with His sword severe and great and mighty on Leviathan the serpent fleeing and Leviathan serpent that twisted and He will slay the reptile that is in the sea." - Isaiah 27:1
Lamed (Shepherd Staff) ... Teach, Yoke, To, Bind
Vav (Tent Peg) ... Add, Secure, Hook
Yod (Arm and closed hand) .. Work, throw, worship
Tav (Crossed sticks) ... Mark, sign, signal, monument
Final
Nun (Seed) ... Continue
When you see what Leviathan is according to the pictographic description of his name, he is a creature that yokes and directs, affixes, causing work, marks for a sign/monument, a seed for perpetuation.
Can you see how this can be seen as the mindset of the present-day system? We are born as children to begin with, and we don't have any of those obligations until we enter the system. That's what the system does to us: it directs us to become part of the system (education), then it secures us when we take on commitments (mortgage/loans), then we are forced to work for survival and we become a monument so that all who look at us will see that that what we are doing is the way to get ahead: learn a career, secure a job and get to work.
That then is a seed. People look all around them and that is all they see, so they just do the same thing - they become the offspring of Leviathan! .. But it's the opposite of what God created in the Garden of Eden, isn't it? .. and it's the opposite of what the early Christians were doing in Acts 4:32-35 too, so somehow they figured out how to get free of it. So I think that's quite interesting too.
Although the words are completely different, they are quite similar in their nature - that they are enemies of the human and opposers ('satans') of the nature of God: Nachash is a destroyer rather than a life-giver, and Leviathan is a Slave Master rather than a father .. but he also a Nachash! .. the Slave-Master Destroyer!
