Job 41:5

5 Can you make a pet out of it like a bird? Can you put it on a leash for your young women?

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 keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak gently to you?
4 Will it make an agreement with you? Can you make it your slave for life?
5 Can you make a pet out of it like a bird? Can you put it on a leash for your young women?
6 Will traders offer you something for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill its body with harpoons? Can you throw fishing spears into its head?
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