This highly figurative statement warns the Philistines not to rejoice over the removal of the threat from an enemy that is now powerless. The warning is given because the Philistines will have to face something even more dangerous.

“Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod which smote you is broken: The emphatic phrase all of you indicates that Philistia is a reference to the Philistines (see 2.6; 9.12). Good News Translation makes this explicit with “People of Philistia.” The rod is a figurative expression for their enemy (see 9.4; 10.5 and especially 10.24). That enemy is not identified here, but many scholars believe it was Assyria. Smote you means the enemy attacked and defeated the Philistines (see 5.25; 10.20). However, that enemy now is broken, meaning that it too has been defeated. Without the figure of the rod, translators may render these lines as “O people of Philistia, do not rejoice because the enemy that attacked you has been defeated.”

For from the serpent’s root will come forth an adder: Serpent’s root is an unusual combination of words. It mixes the animal world and plant world. However, in poetry unusual forms and mixed metaphors are frequent. The previous line pictured the Philistine enemy as a broken rod, but here it is a serpent that gives birth to an adder after it is cut down to its root. The Hebrew word for serpent refers to any snake, whether poisonous or not, but the word for adder refers to a specific poisonous snake, the cobra. By the use of this figurative language Yahweh is warning the Philistines that even their enemy has been defeated, it will become more dangerous. Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch avoid the unusual mixing of metaphors here. They abandon the tree imagery, and speak of a more dangerous snake coming from a dead snake. New English Bible provides a helpful model that keeps the mixed metaphor: “for a viper shall be born of a snake as a plant from the root.” Translators have a choice here, but the mixing of figures should not be their main concern unless it would confuse their readers.

And its fruit will be a flying serpent: This line continues the mixed metaphor of the previous line. Its fruit refers to the fruit of the serpent, not the adder. Good News Translation drops the tree imagery again, and speaks of “A snake’s egg.” The two Hebrew words rendered flying serpent are also found in 30.6, in a similar context, but it is not clear what they mean. The Hebrew word for serpent in the previous line differs from the one here. The word here is rendered “fiery serpent[s]” in Num 21.6, 8; and Deut 8.15, so it probably is snake whose bite causes a strong burning sensation. According to Hope, flying serpent refers to a viper, which is a very poisonous snake. The general context indicates that this kind of snake is even more dangerous than the adder. After the serpent comes the adder, and then the flying serpent, each one more dangerous than the previous one. Translators are free to choose three names for snakes, going from the least to the most dangerous one. For flying serpent, Good News Translation and Bible en français courant suggest “flying dragon” (similarly Contemporary English Version, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), but New International Version is better with “darting, venomous serpent.”

For the translation of this verse we suggest some examples that preserve the tree imagery with root and fruit:

• Do not rejoice, any of you Philistines, that the stick that beat you has been broken because from the root of that serpent a viper will come, and its fruit will be a flying serpent.

• You Philistines should not rejoice that the stick that beat you is broken since out of that serpent a viper will come like a plant comes from a root, and its fruit will be a flying [or, highly poisonous] snake.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .