Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/3_500_e.lzh/3_511.TXT

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\*Ver. 20. \\Surely the mountains bring him forth food\\,
&c.] Grass, which grows on mountains, and is the
food of the river horse as well as of the elephant; and
therefore is furnished with teeth like a scythe to mow
it down; and it is not a small quantity that will suffice
it, mountains only can supply it; and marvellous
it is that a creature bred in a river should come out of
it to seek its food on mountains. There is a creature
in the northern parts, as in Russia, Greenland, &c.
which is called morss and sea morss, and by the description
of it is much like the river horse, of the bigness
of an ox, and having an head like one, with two
large long teeth standing out of its upper jaw, and an
hairy skin {a}, said to be an inch thick, and so tough
that no lance will enter it {b}; it comes out of the sea,
and by its teeth gets up to the tops of mountains, and
having fed on grass rolls itself down again into the sea;
and this it does by putting its hinder feet to its teeth, and
so falls from the mountain with great celerity, as on a
sledge {c};
\*\\where all the beasts of the field play\\; skip
and dance, and delight in each other, being in no fear
of behemoth; whether understood of the elephant or
river horse; since neither of them are carnivorous
creatures that feed on other animals, but on grass only;
and therefore the beasts of the field may feed with
them quietly and securely. Pliny {d} says of the
elephant, that meeting with cattle in the fields, it will
make signs to them not to be afraid of it, and so they
will go in company together.

\*Ver. 21. \\He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the
reed\\, \\and fens\\.] This may be thought to agree
very well with the river horse, the inhabitant of the
Nile, where reeds in great plenty grew, and adjoining to
which were fenny and marshy places, and shady trees;
and, as historians relate {e}, this creature takes its lodging
among high reeds, and in shady places; yea, the reeds
and sugar canes, and the leaves of the papyrus, are part of
the food on which it lives; and hence the hunters of them
sometimes cover their bait with a reed to take them;
though it must be allowed that the elephant delights to
be about rivers, and in clayey and fenny places {f},
and therefore Aelianus {g} says it may be called the fenny animal.

\*Ver. 22. \\The shady trees cover him [with] their shadow\\,
&c.] Under which it lies, as in \\#Job 40:21\\;
which is thought not so well to agree with the
elephant, since, according to Aelianus {h} and other
writers, it lies not down, at least but rarely, but sleeps
standing; it being very troublesome to it to lie down
and rise up again; and besides it is represented by
some authors {i} as higher than the trees, and therefore
this is supposed to agree better with the river horse;
especially since it follows,
\*\\the willows of the brook
compass him about\\; or the willows of the Nile, as some
choose to render it; which would put it out of all
doubt that the river horse is intended, if it could be
established, it being an inhabitant of that river; and
yet the above writer {k} speaks of elephants, when grown
old, seeking large thick and shady woods to take up their abode in.

\*Ver. 23. \\Behold, he drinketh up a river, [and] hasteth
not\\, &c.] The elephant is indeed a very thirsty animal,
and drinks largely; the philosopher {l} says it
drinks nine Macedonian bushels at a feeding, and that
it will drink fourteen Macedonian measures of water
at once, and eight more at noon; but to drink up a
river seems to be too great an hyperbole; wherefore
the words may be rendered, %Behold, let a river oppress
him%, or %bear% ever so hard upon him, and come with
the greatest force and pressure on him {m}, %he hasteth not%
to get out of it; or he is not frighted or troubled, as
the Targum; which agrees with the river horse, who
walks into the river, and proceeds on in it, with the
greatest ease and unconcernedness imaginable; now
and then lifting up his head above water to take breath,
which he can hold a long time; whereas the elephant
cannot wade in the water any longer than his trunk is
above it, as the philosopher observes {n}; and Livy {o}
speaks of fear and trembling seizing an elephant, when
about to be carried over a river in boats;
\*\\he trusteth
that he can draw up Jordan in his mouth\\; so bold and
confident he is, and not at all disturbed with its rapidity;
or %though Jordan%, or rather any descending flowing
stream, %gushes into his mouth%, so Mr. Broughton:
for perhaps Jordan might not be known by Job; nor
does it seem to have any connection with the Nile,
the seat of the river horse; which has such large holes
in its nostrils, and out of which, water being swallowed
down, he can throw it with great force. Diodorus
Siculus {p} represents it as lying all day in the
water, and employing itself at the bottom of it, easy,
careless, and unconcerned.

\*Ver. 24. \\He taketh it with his eyes\\, &c.] Or %can
men take him before his eyes%? so Mr. Broughton; and
others translate it to the same purpose; no, he is not
to be taken openly, but privately, by some insidious
crafty methods; whether it be understood of the
elephant or river horse; elephants, according to Strabo {q}
and Pliny {r} were taken in pits dug for them, into
which they were decoyed; in like manner, according
to some {s}, the river horse is taken; a pit being dug and
covered with reeds and sand, it falls into it unawares;
\*\\[his] nose pierceth through snares\\; he discerns them
oftentimes and escapes them, so that he is not easily
taken in them. It is reported of the sea morss {t}, before
mentioned, \\see Gill on "Job 40:20"\\, that
they ascend mountains in great
herds, where, before they give themselves to sleep, to
which they are naturally inclined, they appoint one of
their number as it were a watchman; who, if he
chances to sleep or to be slain by the hunter, the rest
may be easily taken; but if the watchman gives warning
by roaring as the manner is, the whole herd immediately
awake and fall down from the mountains
with great swiftness into the sea, as before described;
or, as Mr. Broughton, %cannot men take him, [to pierce] his
nose with many snares%? they cannot; the elephant has no
nose to be pierced, unless his trunk can be called so,
and no hook nor snare can be put into the nose of the
river horse. Diodorus Siculus {u} says, it cannot be
taken but by many vessels joining together and surrounding
it, and striking it with iron hooks, to one of
which ropes are fastened, and so the creature is let go
till it expires. The usual way of taking it now is, by
baiting the hook with the roots of water lilies, at
which it will catch, and swallow the hook with it; and
by giving it line enough it will roll and tumble about,
until, through loss of blood, it faints and dies. The
way invented by Asdrubal for killing elephants was
by striking a carpenter's chopping axe into his ear {w};
the Jews {x} say a fly is a terror to an elephant, it enters
into his nose and torments him grievously.

{a} Olaus Magn. ut supra, l. 21. c. 19. Vid. Bochart. ut supra, col.
763. Eden's Travels, p. 318.
{b} See the North West Fox, p. 232. Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 115,
120. Supplement, p. 194.
{c} Olaus Magnus and Eden's Travels, ut supra.
{d} Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 7.
{e} Ammian. Marcellin. l. 22. Bellonius & Achilles Tatius apud Bochart
ut supra.
{f} Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 46. Plin. l. 8. c. 10. Aelian. de
Animal. 50:9. 100:56.
{g} lbid. l. 9. c. 24.
{h} Ibid. c. 31.
{i} Ibid. l. 7. c. 6.
{k} Ibid. c. 2.
{l} Aristot. ut supra.
{m} Vid. Bochart. ut supra, col. 766.
{n} Aristot. ut supra. Vid Aelian. l. 7. c. 15.
{o} Hist. l. 21. c. 28.
{p} Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 31. Isidor. Origin. l. 12. c. 6.
{q} Geograph. l. 15. p. 484.
{r} Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 8. See Ovington's Voyage to Surat, p. 192, 193.
{s} Apud Bochart. ut supra, col. 768.
{t} Eden's Travels, p. 318. Supplement to the North East Voyages,
p. 94.
{u} Bibliothec, l. 1. p. 32.
{w} Orosii Hist. l. 4. c. 18. p. 62. Liv. Hist. l. 27. c. 49.
{x} T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 77. 2. & Gloss. in ib.