Job 41:19

19 Lightning leaps from its mouth; flames of fire flash out.

Job 41:19 Meaning and Commentary

Job 41:19

Out of his mouth go burning lamps, [and] sparks of fire leap
out.
] Which, though hyperbolical expressions, have some foundation for them in the latter; in the vast quantities of water thrown out by the whale, through its mouth or hole in its frontispiece, which in the sun may look like lamps and sparks of fire, as before observed; and especially in the "orcae", or whales with teeth, which eject in the same way an oily mucus, or the fat liquor of the brain, commonly called spermaceti, which may appear more bright and glittering. Ovid F20 says much the same of the boar as is here said of the leviathan.


FOOTNOTES:

F20 "Fulmen ab ore venit; frondesque adflatibus ardent". Metamorph. c. 8. Fab. 4.

Job 41:19 In-Context

17 Each scale sticks tight to the next. They interlock and cannot be penetrated.
18 “When it sneezes, it flashes light! Its eyes are like the red of dawn.
19 Lightning leaps from its mouth; flames of fire flash out.
20 Smoke streams from its nostrils like steam from a pot heated over burning rushes.
21 Its breath would kindle coals, for flames shoot from its mouth.
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