Job 41:1 - Exposition

Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? The word leviathan , or more properly livyathan , which has previously occurred in Job 3:8 , and is found also in Psalms 74:14 ; Psalms 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? (see the Revised Version); i.e. "tie a rope round his lower jaw, and so press down his tongue." Many savage animals are represented in the Assyrian sculptures as led along by a rope attached to their mouths.