Fourth illustration, involving a proof of the terrible power of the tongue for evil. All kinds of wild animals, etc., can be tamed and have been tamed: the tongue cannot be. What a deadly power for evil must it therefore be!
The famous chorus in Sophocles, 'Antigone,' 1. 332, seq., πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀνθώπου δεινότερον πέλει, is quoted by nearly all commentators, and affords a remarkable parallel to this passage.
Every kind of beasts, etc.; literally, every nature ( φύσις) of beasts … hath been tamed by man's nature ( τῇ φύσει τῇ ἀνθρωπίνῃ); Vulgate, omnis enim natura bestiarum … domita sunt a natura humana.
With this fourfold enumeration of the brute creation ("beasts.. birds.., serpents … things in the sea"), cf. Genesis 9:2, "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts ( θήρια) of the earth, upon all the fowls ( πέτεινα) of the heavens, and upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea."
Serpents ( ἐρπετά) would be better rendered, as B.V., creeping things.