translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: JOB

label: NET study note

text: Beginning with 41:1 , the verse numbers through 41:9 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text ( BHS ), with 41:1 ET = 40:25 HT, 41:2 ET = 40:26 HT, etc., through 41:34 ET = 41:26 HT. The Hebrew verse numbers in the remainder of the chapter differ from the verse numbers in the English Bible. Beginning with 42:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.


text: Job 41:9 in the English Bible is 41:1 in the Hebrew text ( BHS) . From here to the end of the chapter the Hebrew verse numbers differ from those in the English Bible, with 41:10 ET = 41:2 HT, 41:11 ET = 41:3 HT, etc. See also the note on 41:1 .


text: The description is of the animal, not the hunter (or fisherman). Leviathan is so fierce that no one can take him on alone.


text: The verse seems an intrusion (and so E. Dhorme, H. H. Rowley, and many others change the pronouns to make it refer to the animal). But what the text is saying is that it is more dangerous to confront God than to confront this animal.


text: For the animal, the image is that of pent-up breath with water in a hot steam jet coming from its mouth, like a stream of fire in the rays of the sun. The language is hyperbolic, probably to reflect the pagan ideas of the dragon of the deep in a polemical way – they feared it as a fire breathing monster, but in reality it might have been a steamy crocodile.


text: The idea is either that the sea is stirred up like the foam from beating the ingredients together, or it is the musk-smell that is the point of comparison.