Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/3_500_e.lzh/3_512.TXT

Text File | 1995-01-23 | 3KB | 61 lines

\\INTRODUCTION TO JOB 41\\

\*A large description is here given of the leviathan,
from the difficulty and danger of taking it, from
whence it is inferred that none can stand before God,
\\#Job 41:1-10\\; from the several parts of him, his face,
teeth, scales, eyes, mouth and neck, flesh and heart,
\\#Job 41:11-24\\; and from various wonderful terrible things
said of him, and ascribed to him, \\#Job 41:25-34\\.

\*Ver. 1. \\Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook\\?
&c.] That is, draw it out of the sea or river as anglers
draw out smaller fishes with a line or hook? the question
suggests it cannot be done; whether by the %leviathan%
is meant the whale, which was the most generally
received notion; or the crocodile, as Bochart, who has
been followed by many; or the %orca%, a large fish of the
whale kind with many teeth, as Hasaeus, it is not easy
to say %Leviathan% is a compound word of than the
first syllable of %thanni%, rendered either a whale, or a
dragon, or a serpent, and of %levi%, which signifies conjunction,
from the close joining of its scales, \\#Job 41:15-17\\;
the patriarch Levi had his name from the same
word; see \\#Ge 29:34\\; and the name bids fairest for
the crocodile, and which is called %thannin%, \\#Eze 29:3,4
32:2\\. Could the crocodile be established
as the %leviathan%, and the behemoth as the river horse,
the transition from the one to the other would appear
very easy; since, as Pliny says {a}, there is a sort of a
kindred between them, being of the same river, the
river Nile, and so may be thought to be better known
to Job than the whale; though it is not to be concealed
what Pliny says {b}, that whales have been seen in the
Arabian seas; he speaks of one that came into the river
of Arabia, six hundred feet long, and three hundred
and sixty broad. There are some things in the description
of this creature that seem to agree best with
the crocodile, and others that suit better with the
whale, and some with neither;
\*\\or his tongue with a
cord [which] thou lettest down\\? into the river or sea, as
anglers do, with lead to it to make it sink below the
surface of the water, and a quill or cork that it may not
sink too deep; but this creature is not to be taken in
this manner; and which may be objected to the crocodile
being meant, since that has no tongue {c}, or at least
so small that it is not seen, and cleaves close to its
lower jaw, which never moves; and is taken with
hooks and cords, as Herodotus {d}, Diodorus Siculus {e},
and Leo Africanus {f}, testify; but not so the whale.

{a} Nat. Hist. l. 28. c. 8.
{b} Ib. l. 32. c. 1.
{c} Diodor. Sicul. l. 1. p. 31. Herodot. Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 68.
Solin. c. 45. Plutarch. de Is. & Osir. Vid. Aristot. de Animal. l. 2.
c. 17. & l. 4. c. 11. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 37. Thevenot, ut supra.
Sandys's Travels, l. 2. p. 78.
{d} Ut supra, c. 70.
{e} Ut supra.
{f} Descriptio Africae, l. 9. p. 762. See Sandy's Travels, ut supra,
p. 79.