Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 41:12 - 41:12

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 41:12 - 41:12


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

12 I will not keep silence about his members,

The proportion of his power and the comeliness of his structure.

13 Who could raise the front of his coat of mail?

Into his double teeth-who cometh therein?

14 The doors of his face-who openeth them?

Round about his teeth is terror.

The Kerî לו authorized by the Masora assumes an interrogative rendering: as to it, should I be silent about its members (לו at the head of the clause, as Lev 7:7-9; Isa 9:2), - what perhaps might appear more poetic to many. הֶֽחֱרִישׁ (once, Job 11:3, to cause to keep silence) here, as usually: to be silent. בַּדָּיו, as Job 18:13. דְּבַר signifies the relation of the matter, a matter of fact, as דִּבְרֵי, facts, Psa 65:4; Psa 105:27; Psa 145:5. חִין (compared by Ew. with הִין, a measure) signifies grace, χάρις (as synon. חֶסֶד), here delicate regularity, and is made easy of pronunciation from חִנְן, just as the more usual חֵן; the language has avoided the form חֵנֶן, as observed above. לְבוּשׁ . clothing, we have translated “coat of mail,” which the Arab. libâs usually signifies; פְּנֵי לְבוּשֹׁו is not its face's covering (Schlottm.), which ought to be לְבוּשׁ פָּנָיו; but פְּנֵי is the upper or front side turned to the observer (comp. Isa 25:7), as Arab. wjh, (wag'h), si rem desuper spectes, summa ejus pars, si ex adverso, prima (Fleischer, Glossae, i. 57). That which is the “doubled of its mouth” (רֶסֶן, prop. a bit in the mouth, then the mouth itself) is its upper and lower jaws armed with powerful teeth. The “doors of the face” are the jaws; the jaws are divided back to the ears, the teeth are not covered by lips; the impression of the teeth is therefore the more terrible, which the substantival clause, Job 41:14 (comp. Job 39:20), affirms. שִׁנָּיו gen. subjecti: the circle, ἓρκος, which is formed by its teeth (Hahn).