the Week of Proper 22 / Ordinary 27
Click here to learn more!
Read the Bible
King James Version
Job 40:24
Bible Study Resources
Dictionaries:
- AmericanEncyclopedias:
- InternationalParallel Translations
Can anyone capture it before its eyes,With snares can anyone pierce its nose?
"Can anyone capture him when he is on watch, With barbs can anyone pierce his nose?
He taketh it with his eyes, and yet the hunter putteth a bridle into his nose.
Shall he be taken in front? will they pierce through [his] nose in the trap?
Though he takes it in his eyes, Or one pierces his nose with a snare.
Shall any take him before his eyes, or pierce his nose with snares?
No one can blind his eyes and capture him. No one can catch him in a trap.
Shall any take him when he is on the watch, Or pierce through his nose with a snare?
He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pearceth through snares.
Who darre laye honde vpon him openly, and vndertake to catch him? Or, who darre put an hoke thorow his nose, ad laye a snare for him?
Shall any take him when he is on the watch, Or pierce through his nose with a snare?
Will anyone take him when he is on the watch, or put metal teeth through his nose?
Shall any take him before his eyes, Or pierce through his nose with a snare?
He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.
Can anyone catch it by its eyes, or pierce its nose with a snare?
There is no way to capture a hippopotamus— not even by hooking its nose or blinding its eyes.
Can anyone catch him by his eyes or pierce his nose with a hook? "And Livyatan! Can you catch him with a fishhook or hold his tongue down with a rope? Can you put a ring in his nose or pierce his jaw with a barb? Will he entreat you at length? Will he speak with you softly? Will he agree with you to be your slave forever? Will you play with him as you would with a bird or keep him on a string to amuse your little girls? Will a group of fishermen turn him into a banquet? Will they divide him among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with darts or his head with fish-spears? If you lay your hand on him, you won't forget the fight, and you'll never do it again!
Hee taketh it with his eyes, and thrusteth his nose through whatsoeuer meeteth him.
Can one take him with a hook, or catch him with a net? Can one snare him in a trap, or can one bind his tongue with a rope?
"Can anyone capture him when he is on watch, Or pierce his nose with barbs [to trap him]?
Shall any take him when he is on the watch, Or pierce through his nose with a snare?
Shall any take him by his eyes, or pierce through his nose with a snare? Canst thou draw out leviathan with a fish-hook? or press down his tongue with a cord? Canst thou put a ring into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a hook? Will he make many supplications unto thee? or will he speak soft words unto thee? Will he make a covenant with thee, that thou shouldest take him for a servant for ever? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? Will the bands of fishermen make a banquet of him? Will they part him among the merchants? Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish-spears? Lay thy hand upon him; think upon the battle, thou wilt do so no more.
No one can catch it off guard or put a ring in its nose and lead it away.
Can anyone take him when he is watching? Can anyone catch him and put a ring in his nose?
And wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or bind him as a sparrow for a child?
Shall any take him when he is on the watch, or pierce through his nose with a snare?
Can anyone capture him as he looks on, or pierce his nose with a snare?
Can one take it with hooks or pierce its nose with a snare?
Before his eyes, shall he be caught? With a hook, can one pierce his nose?
(40-19) In his eyes as with a hook he shall take him, and bore through his nostrils with stakes.
Can anyone take it by its eyes? Can he pierce its nose with a snare?
Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare?
"Can anyone capture him when he is on watch, Can anyone pierce his nose with barbs?
Can anyone blind its eyes and capture it? Can anyone put hooks in its nose?
Who can blind his eyes and capture him? Or who can catch his snout in a trap?
Can anyone capture him while he looks on, or pierce his nose with snares?
He schal take hem bi `the iyen of hym, as bi an hook; and bi scharpe schaftis he schal perse hise nosethirlis.
Before his eyes doth [one] take him, With snares doth [one] pierce the nose?
Can one take him with hooks, or pierce his nose with a snare?
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
Or, Will any take him in his sight, or bore his nose with a gin, Job 41:1, Job 41:2
Gill's Notes on the Bible
He taketh it with his eyes,.... 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, :-, 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.
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.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
He taketh it with his eyes - Margin, “Or, will any take him in his sight, or, bore his nose with a gin!” From this marginal reading it is evident that our translators were much perplexed with this passage. Expositors have been also much embarrassed in regard to its meaning, and have differed much in their exposition. Rosenmuller supposes that this is to be regarded as a question, and is to be rendered, “Will the hunter take him while he sees him?” - meaning that he could not be taken without some snare or guile. The same view also is adopted by Bochart, who says that the hippopotamus could be taken only by some secret snare or pitfall. The common mode of taking him, he says, was to excavate a place near where the river horse usually lay, and to cover it over with reeds and canes, so that he would fall into it unawares. The meaning then is, that the hunter could not approach him openly and secure him while he saw him, but that some secret plan must be adopted to take him. The meaning then is, “Can he be taken when he sees the hunter?”
His nose pierceth through snares - Or rather, “When taken in snares, can anyone pierce his nose?” That is, Can the hunter even then pierce his nose so as to put in a ring or cord, and lead him wherever he pleases? This was the common method by which a wild animal was secured when taken (see the notes at Isaiah 37:29), but it is here said that this could not be done to this huge animal. He could not be subdued in this manner. He was a wild, untamed and fierce animal, that defied all the usual methods by which wild beasts were made captive. In regard to the difficulty of taking this animal, see the account of the method by which it is now done, in the notes at Job 40:15. That account shows that there is a striking accuracy in the description.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Job 40:24. He taketh it with his eyes — He looks at the sweeping tide, and defies it.
His nose pierceth through snares. — If fences of strong stakes be made in order to restrain him, or prevent him from passing certain boundaries, he tears them in pieces with his teeth; or, by pressing his nose against them, breaks them off. If other parts of the description would answer, this might well apply to the elephant, the nose here meaning the proboscis, with which he can split trees, or even tear them up from the roots!
Thus ends the description of the behemoth; what I suppose to be the mastodon or mammoth, or some creature of this kind, that God made as the chief of his works, exhibited in various countries for a time, cut them off from the earth, but by his providence preserved many of their skeletons, that succeeding ages might behold the mighty power which produced this chief of the ways of God, and admire the providence that rendered that race extinct which would otherwise, in all probability, have extinguished every other race of animals!
I am not unapprized of the strong arguments produced by learned men to prove, on the one hand, that behemoth is the elephant; and, on the other, that he is the hippopotamus or river-horse, and I have carefully read all that Bochart, that chief of learned men, has said on the subject. But I am convinced that an animal now extinct, probably of the kind already mentioned, is the creature pointed out and described by the inspiration of God in this chapter.
ON Job 40:1 of this chapter we have seen, from Mr. Heath's remarks, that the fourteen first verses were probably transposed. In the following observations Dr. Kennicott appears to prove the point.
"It will be here objected, that the poem could not possibly end with this question from Job; and, among other reasons, for this in particular; because we read in the very next verse, That after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, c. If, therefore, the last speaker was not Job, but the Lord, Job could not originally have concluded this poem, as he does at present.
"This objection I hold to be exceedingly important and, indeed, to prove decisively that the poem must have ended at first with some speech from God.
"And this remark leads directly to a very interesting inquiry: What was at first the conclusion of this poem? This may, I presume, be pointed out and determined, not by the alteration of any one word, but only by allowing a dislocation of the fourteen verses which now begin the fortieth chapter. Chapters xxxviii., xxxix., xl., and xli., contain a magnificent display of the Divine power and wisdom in the works of the Creator; specifying the lion, raven, wild goat, wild ass, unicorn, peacock, ostrich, horse, hawk, eagle, behemoth, and leviathan.
"Now, it must have surprised most readers to find that the description of these creatures is strangely interrupted at Job 40:1, and as strangely resumed afterwards at Job 40:15; and therefore, if these fourteen verses will connect with and regularly follow what now ends the poem, we cannot much doubt that these fourteen verses have again found their true station, and should be restored to it.
"The greatness of the supposed transposition is no objection: because so many verses as would fill one piece of vellum in an ancient roll, might be easily sewed in before or after its proper place. In the case before us, the twenty-five lines in the first fourteen verses of chapter xl. seem to have been sewed in improperly after Job 39:30, instead of after Job 42:6. That such large parts have been transposed in rolls to make which the parts are sewed together is absolutely certain; and that this has been the case here, is still more probable for the following reason: -
"The lines here supposed to be out of place are twenty-five, and contain ninety-two words; which might be written on one piece or page of vellum. But the MS. in which these twenty-five lines made one page, must be supposed to have the same, or nearly the same, number of lines in each of the pages adjoining. And it would greatly strengthen this presumption if these twenty-five lines would fall in regularly at the end of any other set of lines, nearly of the same number; if they would fall in after the next set of twenty-five, or the second set, or the third, or the fourth, c. Now, this is actually the case here for the lines after these twenty-five, being one hundred or one hundred and one, make just four times twenty-five. And, therefore, if we consider these one hundred and twenty-five lines as written on five equal pieces of vellum, it follows that the fifth piece might be carelessly sewed up before the other four.
"Let us also observe that present disorder of the speeches, which is this. In chapters xxxviii. and xxxix., God first speaks to Job. The end of chap. xxxix. is followed by, 'And the Lord answered Job and said,' whilst yet Job had not replied. At Job 40:3-5, Job answers; but he says, he had then spoken TWICE, and he would add no more; whereas, this was his first reply, and he speaks afterwards. From Job 40:15-34 are now the descriptions of behemoth and leviathan, which would regularly follow the descriptions of the horse, hawk, and eagle. And from Job 42:1-6 is now Job's speech, after which we read in Job 42:7, 'After the Lord had spoken these words unto Job!'
"Now, all these confusions are removed at once if we only allow that a piece of vellum containing the twenty-five lines, (Job 40:1-14,) originally followed Job 42:6. For then, after God's first speech, ending with leviathan, Job replies: then God, to whom Job replies the second time, when he added no more; and then God addresses him the third, when Job is silent, and the poem concludes: upon which the narrative opens regularly, with saying, 'After the Lord had spoken these words unto Job,' c. Job 42:7." - Kennicott's Remarks, p. 161.
The reader will find much more satisfaction if he read the places as above directed. Having ended chap. xxix., proceed immediately to Job 40:15 go on regularly to the end of Job 42:6, and immediately after that add Job 40:1-14. We shall find then that the poem has a consistent and proper ending, and that the concluding speech was spoken by JEHOVAH.
