Job 41:7
Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?
BSB
ASV
Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons, Or his head with fish-spears?
KJV
Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?
FRAGMENTS ON JOB 28.85 (253)
["And all the ships come together would not be able to bear the mere skin of his tail."] All the ships come together are not capable to mortify the extreme and main parts of the dragon. People using bodies or ships cannot by themselves lift a single piece of the skin of his tail. But with the favor of divine virtue, they can bear not only a piece of the skin of his tail but also his entire body, and [they can] mortify it.
Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? - Referring to its thickness and impenetrability. A common method of taking fish is by the spear; but it is here said that the leviathan could not be caught in this manner. The common method of taking the crocodile now is by shooting him; see the notes at Job 41:1. Nothing is more remarkable in the crocodile than the thick and impenetrable skin with which it is covered; and the description here will agree better with this animal than with any other.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.