Job 41:5

5 Will you play with it as [with] birds and 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 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?
7 Can you fill its kin with harpoons or its head with fish spears?
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.