Job 41:4

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

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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 can you pierce its jawbone with a hook?

3 Will it make numerous pleas for mercy to you? Or will it speak gentle words to you?

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?