Job 41:5
in Job 41Can you pet him like a bird or put him on a leash for your maidens?
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
KJV
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
⋯
This verse in Job 41
Commentary
8 notes on this verseWilt thou play with him as with a bird? Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? 30. Why is it that our adversary is first called Behemoth, afterwards Leviathan, but is now compared to a 'bird,' in ridicule at his destruction? For Behemoth, as we have said, is interpreted 'monster,' ['bellua'] and it is shewn to be a quadruped, when it is said to eat hay as an ox. But Leviathan, as he is taken with a hook is doubtless set before us as a serpent in the waters.
This site's exposition
Can you pet him like a bird
on Job 41:5-8
God asks whether Job can keep Leviathan as a pet. Henry reads this string of questions as building toward the warning of verse 8. Clarke takes “you will remember the battle and never repeat it” as blunt counsel, that one encounter with this creature settles the question for good.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church2 voices
Fourth, he shows that he cannot be overcome like birds are overcome by man. Consider about this that birds are first captured with some deception by nets or bird-lime or something of the kind. To exclude this he says, "Will you deceive him like a …
A commentator
BonaventureCollations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 1 · Written in the 13th century.
proposed
When the devil saw Christ suffering, he believed His argument had little weight. But Christ ridiculed him: "Can you play with him as with a bird? Can you put him in leash for your maidens?"
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird?.... In the hand or cage: leviathan plays in the sea, but there is no playing with him by land, Psa 104:26; or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? or young girls, as Mr. Broughton renders it; tie him in a string, as birds are for children to play with?
That they could not enrich themselves with the spoil of him: Shall they part him among the merchants, the bones to one, the oil to another? If they can catch him, they will; but it is probable that the art of fishing for whales was not brought to perfection then, as it has been since.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? - A bird that is tamed. The art of taming birds was doubtless early practiced, and they were kept for amusement. But the leviathan could not thus be tamed. Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? - For their amusement. For such purposes doubtless, birds were caught and caged. There is great force in this question, on the supposition that the crocodile is intended. Nothing could be more incongruous than the idea of securing so rough and unsightly a monster for the amusement of tender and delicate females.
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
Wilt thou play with him - Is he such a creature as thou canst tame; and of which thou canst make a pet, and give as a plaything to thy little girls? נערותיך naarotheycha; probably alluding to the custom of catching birds, tying a string to their legs, and giving them to children to play with; a custom execrable as ancient, and disgraceful as modern.
The words behind it
5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| הַֽתְשַׂחֶק־ | hatsachek- | ¿ will you play | H7832 → | 36 times |
| בּ֭וֹ | bo | with it | ||
| כַּצִּפּ֑וֹר | katzipor | like <the> bird | H6833 → | |
| וְ֝תִקְשְׁרֶ֗נּוּ | vetiksherenu | and will you bind? it | H7194 → | 44 times |
| לְנַעֲרוֹתֶֽיךָ׃ | lenaaroteikha | for girls your | H5291 → |
הַֽתְשַׂחֶק־¿ will you play
hatsachek-H7832 →36 times
בּ֭וֹwith it
bo
כַּצִּפּ֑וֹרlike <the> bird
katziporH6833 →
וְ֝תִקְשְׁרֶ֗נּוּand will you bind? it
vetiksherenuH7194 →44 times
לְנַעֲרוֹתֶֽיךָ׃for girls your
lenaaroteikhaH5291 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
5 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
Job 28:11He stops up the sources of the streams to bring what is hidden to light.
it leads to
- Isaiah 45:2–3
“I will go before you and level the mountains; I will break down the gates of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.
- 1 Corinthians 4:5
Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each…
- Isaiah 44:27
who says to the depths of the sea, ‘Be dry, and I will dry up your currents,’
- Isaiah 37:25
I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”
- Job 26:8
He wraps up the waters in His clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their own weight.
- Isaiah 45:2–3
About Job
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Bonaventure, Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 1; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXXIII; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.