Job 41:5

5 Can you make a pet of the leviathan as you would a bird or put it on a leash for your girls?

Job 41:5 Meaning and Commentary

Job 41:5

Wilt thou play with him as [with] a bird?
&c.] In the hand or cage: leviathan plays in the sea, but there is no playing with him by land, ( Psalms 104:26 ) ;

or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
or young girls, as Mr. Broughton renders it; tie him in a string, as birds are for children to play with? Now, though crocodiles are very pernicious to children, and often make a prey of them when they approach too near the banks of the Nile, or whenever they have an opportunity of seizing them F11; yet there is an instance of the child of an Egyptian woman that was brought up with one, and used to play with it F12, though, when grown up, was killed by it; but no such instance can be given of the whale of any sort.


FOOTNOTES:

F11 Aelian. l. 10. c. 21.
F12 Maxim. Tyr. Sermon. 38.

Job 41:5 In-Context

3 Will it keep begging you for mercy and speak to you with gentle words?
4 Will it make an agreement with you and let you take it as your slave for life?
5 Can you make a pet of the leviathan as you would a bird or put it on a leash for your girls?
6 Will traders try to bargain with you for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants?
7 Can you stick darts all over its skin or fill its head with fishing spears?
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.