Spider

The spider in the UPDV scriptures appears only in figure, and the figure is consistent: the spider's web is what the wicked spin and what the godless trust. Two passages — one from Job's friends, one from Isaiah's indictment — carry the image.

The Trust That Is a Spider's Web

Bildad's speech indicts the man who forgets God by likening his confidence to a thread that breaks: "Whose confidence will break in sunder, And whose trust is a spider's web" (Job 8:14). The spider's web stands for everything the godless rely on — visible enough to be mistaken for support, fragile enough to part under any load. The figure runs straight to Bildad's verdict that such a man's hope perishes.

Weaving the Spider's Web

Isaiah picks up the same image inside a longer indictment of the nation's hands and tongues: "They hatch adders' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper" (Isa 59:5). The two crafts are paired — adders' eggs hatched, spiders' webs woven — and both are deadly. What the wicked produce kills whoever consumes it, and what is crushed only breaks out into more venom. The spider's web here is not just a frail thing but an actively malicious product: the wicked weave it the way they incubate snake eggs.