1 "Can you draw out Leviathan{Leviathan is a name for a crocodile or similar creature.} with a fishhook? Or press down his tongue with a cord?
2 Can you put a rope into his nose? Or pierce his jaw through with a hook?
3 Will he make many petitions to you? Or will he speak soft words to you?
4 Will he make a covenant with you, That you should take him for a servant forever?
5 Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls?
6 Will traders barter for him? Will they part him among the merchants?
7 Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, Or his head with fish-spears?
8 Lay your hand on him. Remember the battle, and do so no more.
9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Will not one be cast down even at the sight of him?
10 None is so fierce that he dare stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?
11 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Everything under the heavens is mine.
12 "I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, Nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame.
13 Who can strip off his outer garment? Who shall come within his jaws?
14 Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror.
15 Strong scales are his pride, Shut up together with a close seal.
16 One is so near to another, That no air can come between them.
17 They are joined one to another; They stick together, so that they can't be pulled apart.
18 His sneezing flashes forth light, His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
19 Out of his mouth go burning torches, Sparks of fire leap forth.
20 Out of his nostrils a smoke goes, As of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
21 His breath kindles coals. A flame goes forth from his mouth.
22 In his neck there is strength. Terror dances before him.
23 The flakes of his flesh are joined together. They are firm on him. They can't be moved.
24 His heart is as firm as a stone, Yes, firm as the lower millstone.
25 When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid. They retreat before his thrashing.
26 If one lay at him with the sword, it can't avail; Nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft.
27 He counts iron as straw; And brass as rotten wood.
28 The arrow can't make him flee. Sling stones are like chaff to him.
29 Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rushing of the javelin.
30 His undersides are like sharp potsherds, Leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
31 He makes the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 He makes a path to shine after him. One would think the deep had white hair.
33 On earth there is not his equal, That is made without fear.
34 He sees everything that is high: He is king over all the sons of pride."
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 41
Commentary on Job 41 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 41
The description here given of the leviathan, a very large, strong, formidable fish, or water-animal, is designed yet further to convince Job of his own impotency, and of God's omnipotence, that he might be humbled for his folly in making so bold with him as he had done.
Job 41:1-10
Whether this leviathan be a whale or a crocodile is a great dispute among the learned, which I will not undertake to determine; some of the particulars agree more easily to the one, others to the other; both are very strong and fierce, and the power of the Creator appears in them. The ingenious Sir Richard Blackmore, though he admits the more received opinion concerning the behemoth, that it must be meant of the elephant, yet agrees with the learned Bochart's notion of the leviathan, that it is the crocodile, which was so well known in the river of Egypt. I confess that that which inclines me rather to understand it of the whale is not only because it is much larger and a nobler animal, but because, in the history of the Creation, there is such an express notice taken of it as is not of any other species of animals whatsoever (Gen. 1:21, God created great whales), by which it appears, not only that whales were well known in those parts in the time of Moses, who lived a little after Job, but that the creation of whales was generally looked upon as a most illustrious proof of the eternal power and godhead of the Creator; and we may conjecture that this was the reason (for otherwise it seems unaccountable) why Moses there so particularly mentions the creation of the whales, because God had so lately insisted upon the bulk and strength of that creature than of any other, as the proof of his power; and the leviathan is here spoken of as an inhabitant of the sea (v. 31), which the crocodile is not; and Ps. 104:25, 26, there in the great and wide sea, is that leviathan. Here in these verses,
Job 41:11-34
God, having in the foregoing verses shown Job how unable he was to deal with the leviathan, here sets forth his own power in that massy mighty creature. Here is,