Job 41:5

5 Who will open the doors of his face? terror is round about his teeth.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F11 Aelian. l. 10. c. 21.
F12 Maxim. Tyr. Sermon. 38.

Job 41:5 In-Context

3 I will not be silent because of him: though because of his power shall pity his antagonist.

4 Who will open the face of his garment? and who can enter within the fold of his breastplate?

5 Who will open the doors of his face? terror is round about his teeth.

6 His inwards are as brazen plates, and the texture of his as a smyrite stone.

7 One cleaves fast to another, and the air cannot come between them.