Job 41:4-14

4 Will it make a covenant with you? Will you take it as a slave forever?

5 Will you play with it as [with] birds and put it on a leash for your girls?

6 Will guildsmen bargain over it? Will they divide it between tradesmen?

7 Can you fill its kin with harpoons or its head with fish spears?

8 Lay your hands on it; think about [the] battle--you will not do [it] again!

9 "Look, {the hope of capturing it} is false. Will one be hurled down even at its sight?

10 [Is] it not fierce when somebody stirs it? Who [then] [is] he [who] would stand {before it}?

11 Who has come to confront me, that I should repay [him]? Under all the heavens, {it belongs to me}.

12 "I will not keep quiet [concerning] its limbs or concerning [the] extent of its might and [the] gracefulness of its frame.

13 Who can strip off {its outer covering}? Who can penetrate its double harness?

14 Who can open [the] doors of its face? Its teeth all around [are] fearsome.

Job 41:4-14 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 41

A large description is here given of the leviathan, from the difficulty and danger of taking it, from whence it is inferred that none can stand before God, Job 41:1-10; from the several parts of him, his face, teeth, scales, eyes, mouth and neck, flesh and heart, Job 41:11-24; and from various wonderful terrible things said of him, and ascribed to him, Job 41:25-34.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew "and"
• [b]. Literally "its hope"
• [c]. Or "Who [is] he [then][who] could stand before me?"; literally "to the face of me"
• [d]. Hebrew "and"
• [e]. Literally "to me"
• [f]. Hebrew "and"
• [g]. Literally "[the] surface of its garment"