On Leviathan
41 [a]“Can you draw Leviathan[b] out of the water[c] with a hook,
or tie down[d] his tongue with a rope?
2 Can you attach a bridle[e] to his snout,
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he make many supplications to you,
or will he beg you for mercy?[f]
4 Will he try to make a deal with you,
so that you may take him in servitude forever?
5 “Will you play with him like a pet bird?
Will you put a leash on him for your little girls?
6 Will your business be able to buy him,
Will you divide him among your merchant friends?
7 Will you fill his flesh with harpoons,
or his head with lances?
8 Lay your hand on him,
and you’ll remember the struggle.
You’ll never do that again!
9 “Look! Anyone’s hope to capture him[g] will prove itself false;
anyone would be terrified[h] just by looking at him.
10 No one is fierce enough to dare to arouse him.
“Who, then, can stand in my presence and face me?
11 Who can take me to court and be reconciled to me?
All of heaven is mine.
12 “I won’t be silent concerning his limbs,
his mighty strength, and orderly frame.
13 Who can strip off his outer armor?[i]
Who can approach him with a bridle?
14 Who dares to open his mouth,[j]
since it is ringed with his terrible teeth!
15 His protective scales are his pride,
they lie sealed tightly together.
16 Each one is so close to the other
that not even air comes in between them.
17 Each is attached to the other,[k]
grasping each other so they cannot be separated.
18 “His snorting releases flashes of light;
his eyes are like the rays[l] of the dawn.
19 Flames blaze from his mouth;
streams of sparking fire fly out.
20 Smoke billows from his nostrils;
like a boiling pot or burning reeds.
21 His breath can ignite coal;
and flames proceed from his mouth.
22 “His neck is so powerful
that all who meet him are terrified.
23 There is no flaw in his body’s armor;
it is firmly fixed on him and unbreachable.
24 His heart is as strong as stone,
it is as hard as a lower millstone.
25 When he rears up, the mighty are terrified;
they are bewildered as he thrashes about.
26 “Thrusting at him with a sword won’t be effective,
nor will spears, darts, or javelins.
27 He regards iron like straw,
and hardened bronze like a dead tree.
28 Arrows won’t make him flee;
stones from a sling are only pebbles to him.
29 Clubs are like twigs;[m]
he laughs at the whoosh of the javelin.
30 “Beneath him he is armored as with sharp potsherds;
he tears through muddy ground
like a threshing sledge through grain.[n]
31 He causes the deep to boil like water in[o] a pot,
and churns the sea like one stirs ointment.
32 The sea is luminescent behind him;
his wake turns the sea white, like those with gray hair.
33 “There’s nothing like him on earth;
he was created without the ability to fear.
34 He looks down on everything that is high;
he rules over every kind[p] of pride.”
Footnotes
- Job 41:1 This v. is 40:25 in MT, v2 is 40:26 in MT, and so through v8.
- Job 41:1 I.e. an ancient, gigantic sea creature, living in Job’s time but now apparently extinct
- Job 41:1 The Heb. lacks of the water
- Job 41:1 Lit. or sink
- Job 41:2 Lit. rope
- Job 41:3 Lit. you with gentle words
- Job 41:9 The Heb. lacks to capture him
- Job 41:9 Or subdued
- Job 41:13 Lit. clothing
- Job 41:14 Lit. door of his face
- Job 41:17 Lit. with his brother
- Job 41:18 Lit. eyelids
- Job 41:29 Lit. stubble
- Job 41:30 The Heb. lacks through grain
- Job 41:31 The Heb. lacks water in
- Job 41:34 Lit. son