Job 40:16

Lo now, his strength is in his loins ,.... The strength of the elephant is well known, being able to carry a castle on its back, with a number of men therein; but what follows does not seem so well to agree with it;

and his force is in the navel of his belly ; since the belly of the elephant is very tender; by means of which the rhinoceros, its enemy, in its fight with it, has the advantage of it, by getting under its belly, and ripping it up with its horn F19 Aelian. de Amimal. l. 17. c. 44. Plin. l. 8. c. 10,20. Vid. Solin. c. 38. Diodor. Sic. l. 3. p. 167. & Strabo. Geograph. l. 16. p. 533. . In like manner Eleazar the Jew killed one of the elephants of Antiochus, by getting between its legs, and thrusting his sword into its navel F20 Joseph. Ben Gorion. Hist. Heb. l. 3. c. 20. 1Maccab. vi. 46. ; which fell and killed him with the weight of it. On the other hand, the "river horse" is covered with a skin all over, the hardest and strongest of all creatures F21 Diodor. Sic. ut supra. (l. 3. p. 167) Plin. l. 8. c. 25. , as not to be pierced with spears or arrows F23 Ptolem. Geograph. l. 7. c. 2. Fragment. Ctesiae ad Calcem Herodot. p. 701. Ed. Gronov. Boius apud Kircher. China cum Momument. p. 193. ; and of it dried were made helmets, shields, spears, and polished darts F24 Herodot. ut supra. (p. 701) Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 2. c. 7. Plin. l. 11. c. 39. . That which Monsieur Thevenot F25 Travels, part 1. c. 72. saw had several shot fired at it before it fell, for the bullets hardly pierced through its skin. We made several shot at him, says another traveller F26 Dampier's Voyages, vol. 2. part 2. p. 105. , but to no purpose; for they would glance from him as from a wall. And indeed the elephant is said to have such a hard scaly skin as to resist the spear F1 Heliodor. Ethiop. Hist. l. 9. c. 18. : and Pliny F2 Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 39. Vid. Vossium in Melam. de Situ Orbis, l. 1. c. 5. p. 28. , though he speaks of the hide of the river horse being so thick that spears are made of it; yet of the hide of the elephant, as having targets made of that, which are impenetrable.