Job 41:1

Job 41:1 . Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? — It is a great question among learned men, what creature is meant by לויתן , leviathan. Our translators were evidently uncertain respecting it, and therefore have given us here and elsewhere, where the word occurs, the original term itself, untranslated. The LXX., however, (who are followed in two instances by the author of the Vulgate,) have not done so, but have everywhere rendered it δρακων , the dragon. But it is far from being certain that in so doing they have given us the true meaning of the word. It is much more probable that either the whale or the crocodile is intended. It is evident the leviathan, mentioned Psalm 104:26 , is an inhabitant of the sea, and the description given of him is generally thought best to suit the whale. There (in the great and wide sea ) go the ships: there is that leviathan which thou hast made to play therein. The same may be said concerning the leviathan, mentioned Psalm 74:14 . It also appears to be an inhabitant of the sea. Now the dragon and crocodile, it is argued, have nothing to do with the sea, but only with rivers, and therefore cannot be intended by leviathan here.

Divers other reasons are also advanced to prove that the whale is the creature meant. “That which inclines me,” says Henry, “rather to understand it of the whale, is not only because it is much larger and a nobler animal, but, because, in the history of the creation there is such an express notice taken of it as is not of any other species of animals whatsoever; God created great whales, Genesis 1:21 . By which it appears, not only that whales were well known in those parts in Moses’s time, who lived a little after Job; but that the creation of whales was generally looked upon as a most illustrious proof of the eternal power and godhead of the Creator. And we may conjecture that this was the reason (for otherwise it seems unaccountable) why Moses there so particularly mentions the creation of the whales; because God had so lately, in this discourse with Job, more largely insisted upon the bulk and strength of that creature than of any other, as the proof of his power.” At the same time, however, that Mr. Henry thus delivers his opinion on the subject, he acknowledges that many learned men were of a different mind; and, in particular, observes of Sir Richard Blackmore, that though he admitted the more received opinion concerning the behemoth being the elephant, yet he agreed with the learned Bochart’s notion of the leviathan, that it is the crocodile, so well known in the river of Egypt.

Verses 1-34. - The crowning description of a natural marvel - the "leviathan," or crocodile - is now given, and with an elaboration to which there is no parallel in the rest of Scripture. It forms, however, a fit climax to the gradually more and more elaborate descriptions of Job 38:39-41 ; Job 39:1-30 ; and Job 40:15-24 . Verse 1. - Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? The word leviathan , or more properly livyathan , which has previously occurred in ch. 3:8, and is found also in Psalm 74:14 ; Psalm 104:26 ; and Isaiah 27:1 , seems to be derived from לוי , "twisting," and תן , "a monster," whence the תּנּין or תּנּים of the Pentateuch and also of Job ( Job 7:12 ), Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 9:11 ), and Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 29:3 ). It is thus a descriptive epithet rather than a name, and has not unnaturally been used to designate more than one kind of animal. The best modern critics regard it as applied sometimes to a python or large serpent, sometimes to a cetacean, a whale or grampus, and sometimes, as hero, to the crocodile. This last application is now almost universally accepted. The crocodile was fished for by the Egyptians with a hook, and in the time of Herodotus was frequently caught and killed (Herod., 2:70); but probably in Job's day no one had been so venturous as to attack him. Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? rather, or press down his tongue with a cord?