Job Chapter 41

From The Open Bible Project

41:1 "Can you draw out [14] Leviathan [See Job Footnotes 14] with a fishhook, or press down his tongue with a cord?

• (l) Meaning the whale.

41:2 Can you put a rope into his nose, or pierce his jaw through with a hook?

• (m) Because he fears lest you should take him.

41:3 Will he make many petitions to you, or will he speak soft words to you?

41:4 Will he make a covenant with you, that you should take him for a servant forever?

• (n) To do your business, and be at your command?

41:5 Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls?

41:6 Will traders barter for him? Will they part him among the merchants?

41:7 Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears?

41:8 Lay your hand on him. Remember the battle, and do so no more.

• (o) If you once consider the danger, you will not meddle with him.

41:9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Won't one be cast down even at the sight of him?

• (p) That is, that trusts to take him.

41:10 None is so fierce that he dare stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?

• (a) If no one dare stand against a whale, which is but a creature, who is able to compare with God the creator?

41:11 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Everything under the heavens is mine.

• (b) Who has taught me to accomplish my work?

41:12 "I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame.

• (c) The parts and members of the whale?

41:13 Who can strip off his outer garment? Who shall come within his jaws?

• (d) That is, who dare pull off his skin?
• (e) Who dare put a bridle in his mouth?

41:14 Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror.

• (f) Who dare look in his mouth?

41:15 Strong scales are his pride, shut up together with a close seal.

41:16 One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

41:17 They are joined one to another. They stick together, so that they can't be pulled apart.

41:18 His sneezing flashes out light. His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

• (g) That is, casts out flames of fire.

41:19 Out of his mouth go burning torches. Sparks of fire leap forth.

41:20 Out of his nostrils a smoke goes, as of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.

41:21 His breath kindles coals. A flame goes forth from his mouth.

41:22 There is strength in his neck. Terror dances before him.

• (h) Nothing is painful or hard for him.

41:23 The flakes of his flesh are joined together. They are firm on him. They can't be moved.

41:24 His heart is as firm as a stone, yes, firm as the lower millstone.

41:25 When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid. They retreat before his thrashing.

41:26 If one attacks him with the sword, it can't prevail; nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft.

41:27 He counts iron as straw; and brass as rotten wood.

41:28 The arrow can't make him flee. Sling stones are like chaff to him.

41:29 Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rushing of the javelin.

41:30 His undersides are like sharp potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.

• (i) His skin is so hard that he lies with a great ease on the stones as in the mud.

41:31 He makes the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

• (k) Either he makes the sea to seem like it is boiling by his wallowing, or else he spouts water in such abundance as it would seem that the sea boiled.

41:32 He makes a path shine after him. One would think the deep had white hair.

• (l) That is, a white froth and shining stream before him.

41:33 On earth there is not his equal, that is made without fear.

41:34 He sees everything that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride."

• (m) He despises all other beasts and monsters, and is the proudest of all others.