Job 41 (NET)

The Description of Leviathan

1 1 “Can you pull in2 Leviathan with a hook,

and tie down3 its tongue with a rope?

2 Can you put a cord through its nose,

or pierce its jaw with a hook?

3 Will it make numerous supplications to you,4

will it speak to you with tender words?5

4 Will it make a pact6 with you,

so you could take it7 as your slave for life?

5 Can you play8 with it, like a bird,

or tie it on a leash9 for your girls?

6 Will partners10 bargain11 for it?

Will they divide it up12 among the merchants?

7 Can you fill its hide with harpoons

or its head with fishing spears?

8 If you lay your hand on it,

you will remember13 the fight,

and you will never do it again!

9 14 See, his expectation is wrong,15

he is laid low even at the sight of it.16

10 Is it not fierce17 when it is awakened?

Who is he, then, who can stand before it?18

11 (Who has confronted19 me that I should repay?20

Everything under heaven belongs to me!)21

12 I will not keep silent about its limbs,

and the extent of its might,

and the grace of its arrangement.22

13 Who can uncover its outer covering?23

Who can penetrate to the inside of its armor?24

14 Who can open the doors of its mouth?25

Its teeth all around are fearsome.

15 Its back26 has rows of shields,

shut up closely27 together as with a seal;

16 each one is so close to the next28

that no air can come between them.

17 They lock tightly together, one to the next;29

they cling together and cannot be separated.

18 Its snorting throws out flashes of light;

its eyes are like the red glow30 of dawn.

19 Out of its mouth go flames,31

sparks of fire shoot forth!

20 Smoke streams from its nostrils

as from a boiling pot over burning32 rushes.

21 Its breath sets coals ablaze

and a flame shoots from its mouth.

22 Strength lodges in its neck,

and despair33 runs before it.

23 The folds34 of its flesh are tightly joined;

they are firm on it, immovable.35

24 Its heart36 is hard as rock,

hard as a lower millstone.

25 When it rises up, the mighty are terrified,

at its thrashing about they withdraw.37

26 Whoever strikes it with a sword38

will have no effect,39

nor with the spear, arrow, or dart.

27 It regards iron as straw

and bronze as rotten wood.

28 Arrows40 do not make it flee;

slingstones become like chaff to it.

29 A club is counted41 as a piece of straw;

it laughs at the rattling of the lance.

30 Its underparts42 are the sharp points of potsherds,

it leaves its mark in the mud

like a threshing sledge.43

31 It makes the deep boil like a cauldron

and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment,44

32 It leaves a glistening wake behind it;

one would think the deep had a head of white hair.

33 The likes of it is not on earth,

a creature45 without fear.

34 It looks on every haughty being;

it is king over all that are proud.”46

141:1sn Beginning with 41:1, the verse numbers through 41:9 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 41:1 ET = 40:25 HT, 41:2 ET = 40:26 HT, etc., through 41:34 ET = 41:26 HT. The Hebrew verse numbers in the remainder of the chapter differ from the verse numbers in the English Bible. Beginning with 42:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same. 241:1tn The verb מָשַׁךְ (mashakh) means “to extract from the water; to fish.” The question here includes the use of a hook to fish the creature out of the water so that its jaws can be tied safely. 341:1tn The verb שָׁקַע (shaqa’) means “to cause to sink,” if it is connected with the word in Amos 8:8 and 9:5. But it may have the sense of “to tie; to bind.” If the rope were put around the tongue and jaw, binding tightly would be the sense. 441:3tn The line asks if the animal, when caught and tied and under control, would keep on begging for mercy. Absolutely not. It is not in the nature of the beast. The construction uses יַרְבֶּה (yarbeh, “[will] he multiply” [= “make numerous”]), with the object, “supplications” i.e., prayers for mercy. 541:3tn The rhetorical question again affirms the opposite. The poem is portraying the creature as powerful and insensitive. 641:4tn Heb “will he cut a covenant.” 741:4tn The imperfect verb serves to express what the covenant pact would cover, namely, “that you take.” 841:5tn The Hebrew verb is שָׂחַק (sakhaq, “to sport; to trifle; to play,” Ps 104:26). 941:5tn The idea may include putting Leviathan on a leash. D. W. Thomas suggested on the basis of an Arabic cognate that it could be rendered “tie him with a string like a young sparrow” (VT 14 [1964]: 114ff.). 1041:6tn The word חָבַּר (khabbar) is a hapax legomenon, but the meaning is “to associate” since it is etymologically related to the verb “to join together.” The idea is that fishermen usually work in companies or groups, and then divide up the catch when they come ashore – which involves bargaining. 1141:6tn The word כָּרַה (karah) means “to sell.” With the preposition עַל (’al, “upon”) it has the sense “to bargain over something.” 1241:6tn The verb means “to cut up; to divide up” in the sense of selling the dead body (see Exod 21:35). This will be between them and the merchants (כְּנַעֲנִים, kÿna’anim). 1341:8tn The verse uses two imperatives which can be interpreted in sequence: do this, and then this will happen. 1441:9sn Job 41:9 in the English Bible is 41:1 in the Hebrew text (BHS). From here to the end of the chapter the Hebrew verse numbers differ from those in the English Bible, with 41:10 ET = 41:2 HT, 41:11 ET = 41:3 HT, etc. See also the note on 41:1. 1541:9tn The line is difficult. “His hope [= expectation]” must refer to any assailant who hopes or expects to capture the creature. Because there is no antecedent, Dhorme and others transpose it with the next verse. The point is that the man who thought he was sufficient to confront Leviathan soon finds his hope – his expectation – false (a derivative from the verb כָּזַב [kazab, “lie”] is used for a mirage). 1641:9tn There is an interrogative particle in this line, which most commentators ignore. But others freely emend the MT. Gunkel, following the mythological approach, has “his appearance casts down even a god.” Cheyne likewise has: “even divine beings the fear of him brings low” (JQR 9 [1896/97]: 579). Pope has, “Were not the gods cast down at the sight of him?” There is no need to bring in this mythological element. 1741:10sn The description is of the animal, not the hunter (or fisherman). Leviathan is so fierce that no one can take him on alone. 1841:10tc MT has “before me” and can best be rendered as “Who then is he that can stand before me?” (ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT, NJPS). The following verse (11) favors the MT since both express the lesson to be learned from Leviathan: If a man cannot stand up to Leviathan, how can he stand up to its creator? The translation above has chosen to read the text as “before him” (cf. NRSV, NJB). 1941:11tn The verb קָדַם (qadam) means “to come to meet; to come before; to confront” to the face. 2041:11sn The verse seems an intrusion (and so E. Dhorme, H. H. Rowley, and many others change the pronouns to make it refer to the animal). But what the text is saying is that it is more dangerous to confront God than to confront this animal. 2141:11tn This line also focuses on the sovereign God rather than Leviathan. H. H. Rowley, however, wants to change לִי־חוּא (li-hu’, “it [belongs] to me”) into לֹא הוּא (lo’ hu’, “there is no one”). So it would say that there is no one under the whole heaven who could challenge Leviathan and live, rather than saying it is more dangerous to challenge God to make him repay. 2241:12tn Dhorme changes the noun into a verb, “I will tell,” and the last two words into אֵין עֶרֶךְ (’en ’erekh, “there is no comparison”). The result is “I will tell of his incomparable might.” 2341:13tn Heb “the face of his garment,” referring to the outer garment or covering. Some take it to be the front as opposed to the back. 2441:13tc The word רֶסֶן (resen) has often been rendered “bridle” (cf. ESV), but that leaves a number of unanswered questions. The LXX reads סִרְיוֹן (siryon), with the transposition of letters, but that means “coat of armor.” If the metathesis stands, there is also support from the cognate Akkadian. 2541:14tn Heb “his face.” 2641:15tc The MT has גַּאֲוָה (ga’avah, “his pride”), but the LXX, Aquila, and the Vulgate all read גַּוּוֹ (gavvo, “his back”). Almost all the modern English versions follow the variant reading, speaking about “his [or its] back.” 2741:15tn Instead of צָר (tsar, “closely”) the LXX has צֹר (tsor, “stone”) to say that the seal was rock hard. 2841:16tn The expression “each one…to the next” is literally “one with one.” 2941:17tn Heb “a man with his brother.” 3041:18tn Heb “the eyelids,” but it represents the early beams of the dawn as the cover of night lifts. 3141:19sn For the animal, the image is that of pent-up breath with water in a hot steam jet coming from its mouth, like a stream of fire in the rays of the sun. The language is hyperbolic, probably to reflect the pagan ideas of the dragon of the deep in a polemical way – they feared it as a fire breathing monster, but in reality it might have been a steamy crocodile. 3241:20tn The word “burning” is supplied. The Syriac and Vulgate have “a seething and boiling pot” (reading אֹגֵם [’ogem] for אַגְמֹן [’agmon]). This view is widely accepted. 3341:22tn This word, דְּאָבָה (dÿ’avah) is a hapax legomenon. But the verbal root means “to languish; to pine.” A related noun talks of dejection and despair in Deut 28:65. So here “despair” as a translation is preferable to “terror.” 3441:23tn Heb “fallings.” 3541:23tn The last clause says “it cannot be moved.” But this part will function adverbially in the sentence. 3641:24tn The description of his heart being “hard” means that he is cruel and fearless. The word for “hard” is the word encountered before for molten or cast metal. 3741:25tc This verse has created all kinds of problems for the commentators. The first part is workable: “when he raises himself up, the mighty [the gods] are terrified.” The mythological approach would render אֵלִים (’elim) as “gods.” But the last two words, which could be rendered “at the breaking [crashing, or breakers] they fail,” receive much attention. E. Dhorme (Job, 639) suggests “majesty” for “raising up” and “billows” (גַּלִּים, gallim) for אֵלִים (’elim), and gets a better parallelism: “the billows are afraid of his majesty, and the waves draw back.” But H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 263) does not think this is relevant to the context, which is talking about the creature’s defense against attack. The RSV works well for the first part, but the second part need some change; so Rowley adopts “in their dire consternation they are beside themselves.” 3841:26tn This is the clearest reading, following A. B. Davidson, Job, 285. The versions took different readings of the construction. 3941:26tn The verb קוּם (qum, “stand”) with בְּלִי (bÿli, “not”) has the sense of “does not hold firm,” or “gives way.” 4041:28tn Heb “the son of the bow.” 4141:29tn The verb is plural, but since there is no expressed subject it is translated as a passive here. 4241:30tn Heb “under him.” 4341:30tn Here only the word “sharp” is present, but in passages like Isa 41:15 it is joined with “threshing sledge.” Here and in Amos 1:3 and Isa 28:27 the word stands alone, but represents the “sledge.” 4441:31sn The idea is either that the sea is stirred up like the foam from beating the ingredients together, or it is the musk-smell that is the point of comparison. 4541:33tn Heb “one who was made.” 4641:34tn Heb “the sons of pride.” Dhorme repoints the last word to get “all the wild beasts,” but this misses the point of the verse. This animal looks over every proud creature – but he is king of them all in that department.