Job 41:4

4 Will it make a covenant with you to be taken as your servant forever?

Job 41:4 Meaning and Commentary

Job 41:4

Will he make a covenant with thee?
&c.] To live in friendship or servitude, as follows;

wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?
oblige him to serve thee for life, or reduce him to perpetual bondage; signifying, that he is not to be tamed or brought into subjection; which is true of the whale, but not of the crocodile; for several authors F9 speak of them as making a sort of a truce with the priests of Egypt for a certain time, and of their being tamed so as to be handled, and fed, and brought up in the house.


FOOTNOTES:

F9 Herodot, ut supra, (Euterpe, sive, l. 2.) c. 69. Aelian. l. 8. c. 2. & l. 10. c. 21. Solin. c. 45. Plin. l. 8. c. 46.

Job 41:4 In-Context

2 Can you put a rope in its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook?
3 Will it make many supplications to you? Will it speak soft words to you?
4 Will it make a covenant with you to be taken as your servant forever?
5 Will you play with it as with a bird, or will you put it on leash for your girls?
6 Will traders bargain over it? Will they divide it up among the merchants?
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.