Job 41:5

5 Can you play with him like a bird or put him on a leash[a] 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 he beg you for mercy or speak softly to you?
4 Will he make a covenant with you so that you can take him as a slave forever?
5 Can you play with him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls?
6 Will traders bargain for him or divide him among the merchants?
7 Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?

Footnotes 1

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