Job 41:27
Ver. 27. He esteemeth iron as straw,.... You may as well cast a straw at him as a bar of iron; it will make no impression on his steeled back, which is as a coat of mail to him; so Eustathius affirms {d} that the sharpest iron is rebounded and blunted by him;[and] brass as rotten wood; or steel, any instrument made of it, though ever so strong or piercing.{d} Apud ibid. (Bochard. Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 17. col. 785.) Job 41:28Ver. 28. The arrow cannot make him flee,.... The skin of the crocodile is so hard, as Peter Martyr says, that it cannot be pierced with arrows, as before observed; therefore it is not afraid of them, nor will flee from them;slingstones are turned with him into stubble; are no more regarded by him than if stubble was cast at him; not only stones out of a sling, but out of an engine; and such is the hardness of the skin of the crocodile, that, as Isidore says {e}, the strokes of the strongest stones are rebounded by it, yea, even it is said to withstand against musket shot {f}.{e} Origin. l. 12. c. 6. {f} Mandelsloe in Harris's Voyages, &c. vol. 1. p. 759. Job 41:29Ver. 29. Darts are counted as stubble,.... Darts being mentioned before, perhaps something else is meant here, and, according to Ben Gersom, the word signifies an engine out of which stones are cast to batter down walls; but these are of no avail against the leviathan;he laugheth at the shaking of a spear; at him, knowing it cannot hurt him; the crocodile, as Thevenot says {g}, is proof against the halberd. The Septuagint version is, "the shaking of the pyrophorus", or torch bearer; one that carried a torch before the army, who, when shook, it was a token to begin the battle; which the leviathan being fearless of laughs at it; See Gill on "Ob 1:18".{g} Travels, part 1. b. 2. c. 72. p. 245. Job 41:30Ver. 30. Sharp stones [are] under him,.... And yet give him no pain nor uneasiness;he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire; and makes his bed of them and lies upon them; as sharp stones, as before, shells of fishes, broken pieces of darts, arrows, and javelins thrown at him, which fall around him: this does not so well agree with the crocodile, the skin of whose belly is soft and thin; wherefore dolphins plunge under it and cut it with a thorn, as Pliny {h} relates, or with spiny fins {i}; but with the whale, which lies among hard rocks and sharp stones, and large cutting pieces of ice, as in the northern seas.{h} Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 25. {i} Sandys's Travels, l. 2. p. 78. Job 41:31Ver. 31. He maketh the deep to boil {k} like a pot,.... Which is all in a from through the violent agitation and motion of the waves, caused by its tossing and tumbling about; which better suits with the whale than the crocodile, whose motion in the water is not so vehement;he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment; this also seems to make against the crocodile, which is a river fish, and is chiefly in the Nile. Lakes indeed are sometimes called seas, in which crocodiles are found; yea, they are also said to be in the seas, Eze 32:2; and Pliny {l} speaks of them as common to the land, river, and sea; and the Nile is in the Alcoran {m} called the sea, and its ancient name was "Oceames" with the Egyptians, that is, in Greek, "ocean", as Diodorus Siculus {n} affirms; and so it is thought to be the Egyptian sea in Isa 11:15. It is observed that they leave a sweet scent behind them; thus Peter Martyr {o}, in his account of the voyages of Columbus in the West Indies, says, they sometimes met with crocodiles, which, when they fled or took water, they left a very sweet savour behind them, sweeter than musk or castoreum. But this does not come up to the expression here of making the sea like a pot of ointment; but the sperm of the whale comes much nearer to it, which is of a fat oily nature, and like ointment, and which the whale sometimes throws out in great abundance, so that the sea is covered with it; whole pails full may be taken out of the water; it swims upon the sea like fat; abundance of it is seen in calm weather, so that it makes the sea all foul and slimy {p}: and there are a sort of birds called "mallemuck", which fly in great numbers and feed upon it {q}. I cannot but remark what the bishop of Bergen observes {r} of the sea serpent, that its excrements float on the water in summertime like fat slime.{k} "Fervetque----aequor". Virgil. Georgic. l. 1. v. 327. {l} Nat. Hist. l. 32. c. 11. {m} Schultens in Job, xiv. 11. {n} Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 17. {o} Decad. 3. l. 4. {p} Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 148, 149. {q} Vid. Scheuchzer. ut supra, (vol. 4.) p. 852. & Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 167. {r} Pantoppidan's History of Norway, part 2. p. 204. Job 41:32Ver. 32. He maketh a path to shine after him,.... Upon the sea, by raising a white from upon it, through its vehement motion as it passes along, or by the spermaceti it casts out and leaves behind it. It is said {s} that whales will cut and plough the sea in such a manner, as to leave a shining glittering path behind them, the length of a German mile, which is three of ours;[one] would think the deep [to be] hoary; to be old and grey headed, or white like the hair of the head of an old man, a figure often used of the sea by poets {t}; and hence "Nereus" {u}, which is the sea, is said to be an old man, because the froth in the waves of it looks like white hair.{s} Vid. Scheuchzer. ibid. (vol. 4.) p. 853. {t} polihv alov, Homer. Iliad. 1. v. 350. polihv yalasshv, Iliad. 4. v. 248. "incanuit unda", Catullus. {u} Phurnutus de Natura Deorum, p. 63. Job 41:33Ver. 33. Upon the earth there is not his like,.... As to form and figure; in most creatures there is some likeness between those in the sea and on the land, as sea horses, calves, &c. but there is no likeness between a whale and any creature on earth; there is between the crocodile and the lizard; nor is any like the whale for the largeness of its bulk; the Targum is,"his dominion is not on the earth,''but on the sea, as Aben Ezra notes; but rather the sense is, there is no power on earth that he obeys and submits to, as the Tigurine version; though the meaning seems to be, that there is none like him, for what follows:who is made without fear; yet this agrees not neither with the crocodile, which Aelianus {w} says is fearful; nor with the whale, which will make off and depart at the shoutings of men, blowing of trumpets, and making use of any tinkling instruments, at which it is frightened, as Strabo {x}, Philostratus {y}, and Olaus Magnus {z}, relate. It is observed {a}; of their valour, that if they see a man or a long boat, they go under water and run away; and are never known to endeavour to hurt any man, but when in danger; though a voyager {b} of our own says,"we saw whales in Whale-sound, and lying aloft on the water, not fearing our ships, or aught else.''The Targum is,"he is made that he might not be broken;''or bruised, as Bochart; as reptiles usually may, among whom the crocodile may be reckoned, because of its short legs; and yet is made with such a hard scaly skin, that it cannot be crushed, bruised, and broken. Aben Ezra observes that some say, the word "hu", that is, "he", is wanting, and should be supplied, "he", that is, "[God], made him without fear"; or that he might not be bruised; wherefore Cocceius interprets the following words entirely of God.{w} De Animal. l. 10. c. 24. {x} Geograph. l. 15. p. 499. {y} Vit. Apollon. l. 3. c. 16. {z} De Ritu Gent. Septent. l. 21. c. 3, 6. {a} Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 153. {b} Baffin in the North-West Fox, p. 150. Job 41:34Ver. 34. He beholdeth all high [things],.... Or "who beholdeth all high [things]"; even he that made leviathan, that is, God, as the above interpreter: he does that which Job was bid to do, and could not; beholds everyone that is proud, and abases him, Job 40:11; and therefore he ought to acknowledge his sovereignty and superiority over him, and submit to him;he [is] a king over all the children of pride: the proud angels that fell, and all the proud sons of men; proud monarchs and potentates of the earth, such as Nebuchadnezzar and others, Da 4:31. But interpreters generally understand all this either of the crocodile, or of a fish of the whale kind. Bochart observes, that the crocodile, though it has short legs, will behold, and meet unterrified, beasts abundantly taller than itself, and with one stroke of its tail break their legs and bring them low; and will destroy not only men, but all sorts of beasts, as elephants, camels, horses, oxen, boars, and every animal whatsoever. But others apply this to the whale, which beholds the tossing waves of the sea, which mount up to heaven; the clouds of heaven on high over it; the lofty cliffs or shores, and ships of the greatest bulk and height; and which, when it lifts up itself above the water, equals the high masts of ships, and is abundantly superior to all the tribes of watery animals, or the beasts of the sea. But this seems not wholly to come up to the expressions here used. Upon the whole, as there are some things that agree with the crocodile, and not the whale; and others that agree with the whale, of one sort or another, and not with the crocodile; it is uncertain which is meant, and it seems as if neither of them were intended: and to me very probable is the opinion of Johannes Camerensis {c}, and to which the learned Schultens most inclines, that the leviathan is the dragon of the land sort, called leviathan, the piercing serpent, as distinct from the dragon in the sea, Isa 27:1; which agrees with the description of the leviathan in the whole: as its prodigious size; its terrible countenance; its wide jaws; its three forked tongue; its three rows of sharp teeth; its being covered all over, back and belly, with thick scales, not to be penetrated by arrows and darts; its flaming eyes, its fiery breath, and being most terrible to all, and fearless of every creature; it will engage with any, and conquer and kill an elephant {d}; hence in Ethiopia dragons have no other names than elephant killers: and so it may be said to be king over all the children of pride; of all which proof may be given from various writers, as Pliny {e}, Aelianus {f}, Philostratus {g}, and others; and particularly the dragon Attilius Regulus, the Roman general, killed near Bagrade in Africa, is a proof itself of almost all the above articles, as Osorius {h} has described it; nor is it any objection that the leviathan is represented as being in the sea, since the dragon, even the land dragon, will plunge into rivers, and is often found in lakes called seas, and in maritime places, and will go into the sea itself, as Pliny {i} and Philostratus {k} relate. To which may be added, that this creature was found among the Troglodytes {l} who lived near the Red sea, and not far from Arabia, where Job dwelt, and so might be well known by him: and besides, of all creatures, it is the most lively emblem of the devil, which all the ancient Christian writers make leviathan to be; and Satan is expressly called the dragon in Re 12:3. So Suidas {m} says, the devil is called a dragon in Job. But be the leviathan what it may, it certainly is an illustrious instance of the power of God in making it; and therefore Job and every other man ought to submit to him that made it, in all things, and be humble under his mighty hand; owning freely, that it is his right hand, and his only, and not man's, that can save, either in a temporal or spiritual sense; for which end this and the behemoth are instanced in.(See definition for 03882. Editor.){c} Apud Pinedam, in v. 1. {d} Isidor. Origin l. 12. c. 4. {e} Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 14. {f} De Animal. l. 2. c. 21. & l. 10. c. 48. & l. 15. c. 21. & l. 16. c. 39. {g} Vit. Apollon. l. 3. c. 2. Vid. Ovid. Metamorph. l. 3. Fab. 1. {h} Hist. l. 4. c. 8. {i} Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 13. {k} Ut supra. (Vit. Apollon. l. 3. c. 2. Vid. Ovid. Metamorph. l. 3. Fab. 1.) {l} Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 11, 12. & l. 31. c. 2. {m} In voce drakwn, & in voce qeliw.
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.