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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 41:6 - 41:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
6 Do fishermen trade with him,
Do they divide him among the Canaanites?
7 Canst thou fill his skin with darts,
And his head with fish-spears?
8 Only lay thy hand upon him
Remember the battle, thou wilt not do it again!
9 Behold, every hope becometh disappointment:
Is not one cast down even at the sight of him?
The fishermen form a guild (Arab. ṣunf, sunf), the associated members of which are called חַבָּרִים (distinct from חֲבֵרִים). On כָּרָה עַל, vid., on Job 6:27. “When I came to the towns of the coast,” says R. Akiba, b. Rosch ha-Schana, 26b, ”they called selling, which we call מכירה, כירה, there,” according to which, then, Gen 50:5 is understood, as by the Syriac; the word is Sanscrito-Semitic, Sanscr. kri, Persic chirı̂den (Jesurun, p. 178). lxx ἐνσιτούνται, according to 2Ki 6:23, to which, however, עָלָיו is not suitable. כְּנַֽעֲנִים are Phoenicians; and then, because they were the merchant race of the ancient world, directly traders or merchants. The meaning of the question is, whether one sells the crocodile among them, perhaps halved, or in general divided up. Further, Job 41:7 : whether one can kill it בְּשֻׂכֹּות, with pointed missiles (Arab. shauke, a thorn, sting, dart), or with fish-spears (צִלְצַל, so called from its whizzing, צלל, óáëëá). In Job 41:8 the accentuation is the right indication: only seize upon him - remember the battle, i.e., thou wilt be obliged to remember it, and thou wilt have no wish to repeat it. זְכֹר .ti t is a so-called imperat. consec.: if thou doest it, thou wilt ... , Ges. §130, 2. תֹּוסַף is the pausal form of תֹּוסֵף (once ôï͂óð, Pro 30:6), of which it is the original form.
The suff. of תֹּוהַלְתֹּו refers to the assailant, not objectively to the beast (the hope which he indulges concerning it). נִכְזָֽבָה, Job 41:9, is 3 praet., like נֶֽאֱלָֽמָה, Isa 53:7 (where also the participial accenting as Milra, occurs in Codd.); Fürst's Concord. treats it as part., but the participial form נִקְטְלָה, to be assumed in connection with it, along with נִקְטָלָֽה and נִקְטֶֽלֶת, does not exist. הֲגַם, Job 41:9, is, according to the sense, equivalent to הֲלֹא גַם, vid., on Job 20:4. מַרְאָיו (according to Ges., Ew., and Olsh., sing., with the plural suff., without a plur. meaning, which is natural in connection with the primary form מַרְאַי; or what is more probable, from the plur. מַרְאִים with a sing. meaning, as פָּנִים) refers to the crocodile, and יֻטָּל (according to a more accredited reading, יֻטָּל = יוּטָל) to the hunter to whom it is visible.
What is said in Job 41:6 is perfectly true; although the crocodile was held sacred in some parts of Egypt, in Elephantine and Apollonopolis, on the contrary, it was salted and eaten as food. Moreover, that there is a small species of crocodile, with which children can play, does not militate against Job 41:5. Everywhere here it is the creature in its primitive strength and vigour that is spoken of. But if they also knew how to catch it in very early times, by fastening a bait, perhaps a duck, on a barb with a line attached, and drew the animal to land, where they put an end to its life with a lance-thrust in the neck (Uhlemann, Thoth, S. 241): this was angling on the largest scale, as is not meant in Job 41:1. If, on the other hand, in very early times they harpooned the crocodile, this would certainly be more difficult of reconcilement with v. 31, than that mode of catching it by means of a fishing-hook of the greatest calibre with Job 41:1. But harpooning is generally only of use when the animal can be hit between the neck and head, or in the flank; and it is very questionable whether, in the ancient times, when the race was without doubt of an unmanageable size, that has now died out, the crocodile hunt (Job 7:12) was effected with harpoons. On the whole subject we have too little information for distinguishing between the different periods. So far as the questions of Jehovah have reference to man's relation to the two monsters, they concern the men of the present, and are shaped according to the measure of power which they have attained over nature. The strophe which follows shows what Jehovah intends by these questions.