Job 41:29
in Job 41A club is regarded as straw, and he laughs at the sound of the lance.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Clubs are counted as stubble: He laugheth at the rushing of the javelin.
KJV
Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.
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This verse in Job 41
Commentary
8 notes on this verseDarts are counted as stubble,.... Darts being mentioned before, perhaps something else is meant here, and, according to Ben Gersom, the word signifies an engine out of which stones are cast to batter down walls; but these are of no avail against the leviathan; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear; at him, knowing it cannot hurt him; the crocodile, as Thevenot says (g), is proof against the halberd.
This site's exposition
Strength resides in his neck
on Job 41:22-29
His chest is “as hard as a rock, as hard as a lower millstone”, a doubled figure Barnes reads as courage nothing within can shake. Every weapon fails, “the spear or dart or arrow”. Clarke hears in these useless weapons an answer to Job's demand for legal means against God.
This site's exposition
A club is regarded as straw
The club regarded as straw is a word found only here, Barnes notes, from a root meaning to beat. Ben Gersom took it as an engine for hurling stones. Gill adds that the crocodile laughs at the sound of the lance.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church2 voices
As someone is bruised from a great distance by stones shot from a sling, so also something is bruised at close quarters by a hammer, but the whale cannot be harmed even in this way by man, and so he says, "He will treat the …
A commentator
Gregory the DialogistMorals on the Book of Job, Book XXXIV · Written before 604.
proposed
He will esteem the hammer as stubble. And will laugh at Him that shaketh the spear. 23. As if he were saying, He despises even the weight of that reproof, which strikes him by a punishment coming from above. For in Holy Scripture by the name 'hammer' is sometimes designated the devil, by whom the faults of offenders are now smitten.
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
It is the picture of a hard-hearted sinner, that despises the terrors of the Almighty and laughs at all the threatenings of his word. The leviathan so little dreads the weapons that are used against him that, to show how hardy he is, he chooses to lie on the sharp stones, the sharp-pointed things (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Darts are counted as stubble - The word rendered “darts” (תותח tôthâch) occurs nowhere else in the Scriptures. It is from יתח, obsolete root, “to beat with a club.” The word here probably means clubs. Darts and spears are mentioned before, and the object seems to be to enumerate all the usual, instruments of attack. The singular is used here with a plural verb in a collective sense.
Darts are counted as stubble - All these verses state that he cannot be wounded by any kind of weapon, and that he cannot be resisted by any human strength. A young crocodile, seen by M. Maillet, twelve feet long, and which had not eaten a morsel for thirty-five days, its mouth having been tied all that time, was nevertheless so strong, that with a blow of its tail it overturned a bale of coffee, and five or six men, with the utmost imaginable ease! What power then must lodge in one twenty feet long, well fed, and in health!
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| כְּ֭קַשׁ | kekash | like chaff | H7179 → | 16 times |
| נֶחְשְׁב֣וּ | nechshevu | they are regarded | H2803 → | 124 times |
| תוֹתָ֑ח | totach | a club | H8455 → | |
| וְ֝יִשְׂחַ֗ק | veyischak | so it may laugh | H7832 → | 36 times |
| לְרַ֣עַשׁ | leraash | to [the] shaking of | H7494 → | |
| כִּידֽוֹן׃ | kidon | a javelin | H3591 → |
כְּ֭קַשׁlike chaff
kekashH7179 →16 times
נֶחְשְׁב֣וּthey are regarded
nechshevuH2803 →124 times
תוֹתָ֑חa club
totachH8455 →
וְ֝יִשְׂחַ֗קso it may laugh
veyischakH7832 →36 times
לְרַ֣עַשׁto [the] shaking of
leraashH7494 →
כִּידֽוֹן׃a javelin
kidonH3591 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
2 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
2 Chronicles 26:14Uzziah supplied the entire army with shields, spears, helmets, armor, bows, and slingstones.
it leads to
- 1 Samuel 17:49
Then David reached into his bag, took out a stone, and slung it, striking the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.
- Judges 20:16
Among all these soldiers there were 700 select left-handers, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair without missing.
- 1 Samuel 17:49
About Job
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Job; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXXIV; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.