The Bible uses the verb “bite” (or some form of it, like “bites, bit, bitten”) ten times in the Old Testament, and every time God used that word it was in connection with a serpent. In Numbers 21, “the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people died” (21:6-9). Horrible! I’d never want to experience that! God warned Israel through the prophet Amos that eventually a serpent, metaphorically, would “bite them” (9:3; 5:19). Horrible! I’d never want to experience that! God warned Judah through Jeremiah of the same fate (Jer. 8:17). Horrible! I’d never want to experience that! (See also Ecclesiastes 10:8-11.)
What’s the point? When God wanted His people’s attention and when He wanted to convey the impending consequences of their actions as absolutely horrible, He likened their doom to the bite of a serpent. How revealing to take that understanding into Proverbs 23:32, where God warns, “Do not look on the wine…at the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper.” How horrible! Who would ever want to experience that?