Job · Chapter 41

V. 1. Leviathan-Several particulars in the following description, agree far better with the crocodile, than the whale. It is highly probable, that this is the creature here spoken of. Cord-Canst thou take him with a hook and a line, as anglers take ordinary fishes.

Verse 1. Canst thou draw out leviathan] We come now to a subject not less perplexing than that over which we have passed, and a subject on which learned men are less agreed than on the preceding. What is leviathan? The Hebrew word לויתנ livyathan is retained by the Vulgate and the Chaldee. The Septuagint have, Axeis de drakonta; “Canst thou draw out the DRAGON?” The Syriac and Arabic have the same. A species of whale has been supposed to be the creature in question; but the description suits no animal but the crocodile or alligator; and it is not necessary to seek elsewhere. The crocodile is a natural inhabitant of the Nile, and other Asiatic and African rivers. It is a creature of enormous voracity and strength, as well as fleetness in swimming. He will attack the largest animals, and even men, with the most daring impetuosity. In proportion to his size he has the largest mouth of all monsters. The upper jaw is armed with forty sharp strong teeth, and the under jaw with thirty-eight. He is clothed with such a coat of mail as cannot be pierced, and can in every direction resist a musket-ball. The Hebrew ywl levi תנ ten signifies the coupled dragon; but what this is we know not, unless the crocodile be meant.

With a hook] That crocodiles were caught with a baited hook, at least one species of crocodile, we have the testimony of Herodotus, lib. ii., c. 70: Epean nwton suov deleash peri agkistron, metiei ev meson ton potamon, k. t. l. “They take the back or chine of a swine, and bait a hook with it, and throw it into the midst of the river; and the fisherman stands at some distance on the shore holding a young pig, which he irritates, in order to make it squeak. When the crocodile hears this he immediately makes towards the sound; and, finding the baited hook in his way, swallows it, and is then drawn to land, when they dash mud into his eyes, and blind him; after which he is soon despatched.” In this way it seems leviathan was drawn out by a hook: but it was undoubtedly both a difficult and dangerous work, and but barely practicable In the way in which Herodotus relates the matter.

Or his tongue with a cord] It is probable that, when the animal was taken, they had some method of casting a noose round his tongue, when opening his mouth; or piercing it with some barbed instrument. Thevenot says that in order to take the crocodile they dig holes on the banks of the river, and cover them with sticks. The crocodiles fall into these, and cannot get out. They leave them there for several days without food, and then let down nooses which they pitch on their jaws, and thus draw them out. This is probably what is meant here.

Verse 1. Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? — It is a great question among learned men, what creature is meant by ˆtywl, leviathan. Our translators were evidently uncertain respecting it, and therefore have given us here and elsewhere, where the word occurs, the original term itself, untranslated. The LXX., however, (who are followed in two instances by the author of the Vulgate,) have not done so, but have everywhere rendered it drakwn, the dragon. But it is far from being certain that in so doing they have given us the true meaning of the word. It is much more probable that either the whale or the crocodile is intended. It is evident the leviathan, mentioned Psalm 104:26, is an inhabitant of the sea, and the description given of him is generally thought best to suit the whale. There (in the great and wide sea) go the ships: there is that leviathan which thou hast made to play therein. The same may be said concerning the leviathan, mentioned Psalm 74:14. It also appears to be an inhabitant of the sea. Now the dragon and crocodile, it is argued, have nothing to do with the sea, but only with rivers, and therefore cannot be intended by leviathan here. Divers other reasons are also advanced to prove that the whale is the creature meant. “That which inclines me,” says Henry, “rather to understand it of the whale, is not only because it is much larger and a nobler animal, but, because, in the history of the creation there is such an express notice taken of it as is not of any other species of animals whatsoever; God created great whales, Genesis 1:21. By which it appears, not only that whales were well known in those parts in Moses’s time, who lived a little after Job; but that the creation of whales was generally looked upon as a most illustrious proof of the eternal power and godhead of the Creator. And we may conjecture that this was the reason (for otherwise it seems unaccountable) why Moses there so particularly mentions the creation of the whales; because God had so lately, in this discourse with Job, more largely insisted upon the bulk and strength of that creature than of any other, as the proof of his power.” At the same time, however, that Mr. Henry thus delivers his opinion on the subject, he acknowledges that many learned men were of a different mind; and, in particular, observes of Sir Richard Blackmore, that though he admitted the more received opinion concerning the behemoth being the elephant, yet he agreed with the learned Bochart’s notion of the leviathan, that it is the crocodile, so well known in the river of Egypt. Poole also seems to have been of the same judgment. “It is evident,” says he, “that the Hebrew ˆynt, thannin, which is parallel to this word, leviathan, is used of the crocodile, Ezekiel 29:3, 4, and 32:3. But I shall not positively determine this controversy,” adds he, “but only show how far the text may be understood of both of them, and then submit it to the reader’s judgment, this being a matter wherein Christians may vary without any hazard. Only this I will say, that whatever becomes of the behemoth of the former chapter, whether that be the elephant or the hippopotamus, that doth not at all determine the sense of this leviathan, but leaves it indifferent to the whale or the crocodile, as the context shall determine, which, I confess, seems to me to favour the latter more than the former. To which may be added, that it seems more probable that God should speak of such creatures as were very well known to Job and his friends, as the crocodile was, than of such as it was very uncertain whether they were known in those parts, and in Job’s time.” The reader will observe, that the word leviathan is supposed to be derived from ywl, levi, joined, or coupled, and ˆt, than, or ˆynt, thannin, a dragon, that is, a large serpent, or fish, the word thannin being used both for a land-serpent and a kind of fish. And, “after comparing what Bochart and others have written on the subject, it appears to me,” says Parkhurst, “that the compound word ˆtywl, leviathan, the coupled dragon, denotes some animal partaking of the nature both of land-serpents and fishes, and, in this place, signifies the crocodile, which lives as well under water as on the shore.” Dr. Dodd also agrees with Parkhurst, and the other learned men just mentioned, that Bochart “has proved by arguments, strictly conclusive, that the crocodile must be meant in this chapter.” It may be observed further here, that, although it might have been expected, that the Creator should have singled out and have dwelt upon two of the greatest of his works in the animal creation, the elephant and the whale, the former the largest and most eminent of quadrupeds, and the latter of fishes, for the display of his power and glory; yet, that naturalists have found great, if not insuperable difficulties in their endeavours to apply the particulars of this description to the whale. And all that can be said to solve these difficulties is, that there are many different species of whales, several that are known, and probably many more that are not known; and that although this description, in all its parts, may not exactly suit any species of them which we know, there may be others in the immense ocean with which we are not acquainted that it may suit; creatures which, though comprehended under the general name of whales, may, in many respects, be very different from, and much larger than, any that have been taken. But still it is very improbable, either that Job should know any thing of such whales, or that Jehovah, when reasoning with him and producing proofs of his power and providence, should make his appeal to creatures with which Job had no acquaintance. It seems, therefore, most probable that the crocodile is intended, and, we think, would be certain, were it not that the leviathan is represented in some of the passages where it is mentioned in Scripture, as we have observed, as an inhabitant of the sea, whereas the crocodile is only found in rivers. But perhaps the term leviathan does not always signify the same creature, but is put for different animals in different places, especially for such as are of extraordinary bulk, or of singular qualities. This verse, which speaks either of the impossibility, or rather of the great and terrible difficulty of taking the leviathan with the hook, or line, or such like instruments, may agree either to the whale or to the crocodile. As to the whale, there can be no doubt, nor much doubt as to the crocodile; the taking of which was generally esteemed by the ancients to be very difficult and perilous. Thus Diodorus Siculus says, they cannot be secured but in iron nets. When Augustus conquered Egypt, he struck a medal, the impress of which was a crocodile chained to a palm-tree, with this inscription, “None ever bound him before.” “In order to take these animals,” says Thevenot, “they make a number of holes, or ditches, on the banks of the river, which they cover with sticks, and things of the like kind; afterward, when the crocodiles pass over these cavities, especially when the waters rise in the river, which is the season of catching them, on account of their going further off from the river at that time, they fall into the holes and cannot get out again; in this confinement they are suffered to continue without food for several days; after which they let down certain nooses with running knots, wherewith they fasten their jaws, and then draw them out.” These nooses are the ylbj, cheblee, the cords, here mentioned, and this shows that the word ˆwvl, leshon, is not to be understood of the tongue only, but of the whole fauces, or jaws. Or his tongue with a cord — This clause should be rendered, Canst thou bind his jaws with a cord? Some have objected, that this last clause cannot agree to the crocodile, because Aristotle, Pliny, and some other ancient authors have affirmed that it has no tongue. But, 1st, The notion that they have no tongues is a mistake, which has arisen from their tongues being but small in proportion to their vast bodies, and withal fastened to their under jaws. But that the crocodile hath a tongue is positively affirmed by several ancient authors, and by the Hebrew writers, and the Arabians, to whom this creature was best known, as also by later authors. But, 2d, It is not only of the tongue this clause speaks, but of the whole jaws of the leviathan. Maillet also bears testimony that the manner of taking these animals is very difficult, and sometimes very remarkable; the most common method, he says, is to dig great trenches, or ditches, along the Nile, which are covered with straw, and into which the creatures fall unawares. They are sometimes taken with hooks, baited with a quarter of a pig, or bacon, which they are very fond of. — Heath and Dr. Young. Hasselquist, speaking of the difficulty of taking this animal, says, “He frequently breaks the nets of fishermen, if they come in his way, and they are often exposed to great danger. I found a fishing-hook in the palate of the crocodile, which I dissected.” Hasselquist’s Voyages, p. 216.

Verse 1. Canst thou draw out leviathan? This word is rendered by the LXX, “dragon.” It occurs in Isaiah 27:1, and is rendered whale, dragon, and serpent. Men are now satisfied that it is not the whale but the crocodile to which this description exactly refers. The harpooners can easily pierce a whale, as is denied of leviathan; the flesh of the whale is soft, but that of the crocodile is hard. Men never sling stones at the whale; but these have been tried in vain against the dragon. But the term crooked serpent, found in many versions, applies neither to the whale nor the crocodile; and must have been occasioned by the imperfect knowledge which the learned world then had of natural history. The crocodile, common to most of the great rivers and lakes under the torrid zone, is a most terrific animal. His figure nearly resembles the lizard. His length is usually from twelve to twenty feet, his body is covered with an almost impenetrable coat of mail, and the hunters can pierce him only between his legs and his body, which they sometimes do while he is asleep. In the water he reigns lord and king, and darts on the finny tribes with amazing velocity. Designed to float on the waters he moves his upper jaw, and when he closes it on his prey, he makes the valleys echo by the collision of his grinders. On the land, happy for man, his motion is slow. Maillet and Bartram have given the history of this animal at large, and the reader will be entertained in perusing their travels.

Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is called by Ezekiel, “the great dragon,” or crocodile, “that lieth in the midst of the rivers, which hath said, my river is my own: I have made it myself.”

1. Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? — According to the almost unanimous opinion of recent commentators, the term leviathan is here used of the crocodile. See Excursus VIII. This animal, together with the hippopotamus, formerly abounded in the Nile; and it is possible that both, in very ancient times, were to be found in some of the rivers of Palestine, though rarely, we may assume, because of the comparative smallness of these rivers. It is supposed by some that the lengthy description given of these monsters is due to their being entirely unknown, except by vague report, to the people among whom Job lived, and that this is the ground for their having been selected for the climactical closing of the object lessons from nature, set before Job by his Creator. But the lesson would have been none the less impressive on the supposition that, now and then, one of these monsters should have been seen among the marshes either of the Jordan, of Merom, of the Wady Zerka, or of the lower portions of Esdraelon, in which the crocodile would have enjoyed a decided vantage ground in case of any effort to take or destroy him. Dr. Tristram speaks of various reports of the existence of the crocodile in the Wady Zerka or “Blue River,” on the plain of Sharon, a little to the south of Carmel, and says, “I have not the smallest doubt that some few specimens of this monster reptile, known to the natives under the name of timsah, still linger among the marshes of the Zerka. This is undoubtedly the Crocodile River of the ancients, and it is difficult to conceive how it should have acquired the name, unless by the existence of the animal in its marshes.… The crusading historians mention the existence of the crocodile in their day in this very river.… When we observe the strong affinity between the herpetological and ichthyological fauna of Egypt and Palestine, there is scarcely more reason to doubt the past existence of the crocodile in the one, than its present continuance in the other.” — The Land of Israel, 103,

104. “There is nothing,” says Zockler, “to forbid the assumption that instead of the Egyptian crocodile, (or, at least, along with it,) the author had in view a Palestinian species or variety of the same animal, which is no longer extant, and that this Palestinian crocodile, just because it was rarer than the saurian of the Nile, was, in fact, held to be impossible of capture.” See Pierrotti, (Cust. and Trad. of Palestine, pp. 33-39;) also Dr. Robinson, (Phys. Geog., p. 175,) who remarks that “it does not appear that any person, either native or foreigner, has ever himself actually seen a living crocodile in this region.” These animals belong to the class of saurian reptiles, crocodilidae, and sometimes attain to the enormous length of thirty or even thirty-five feet. AElian relates that during the reign of Psammetichus a crocodile was seen of more than thirty-seven feet, and speaks of another under Amasis more than thirty-nine feet in length. (Larcher’s Herodotus, 1:283.) Sonnini and Captain Norden declare, that they have been sometimes met with in the Nile, fifty feet in length. They are of a bronzed green color, speckled with brown; are covered with bony plates in six rows of nearly equal size all along the back, giving it the appearance of Mosaic; they have as many as sixty vertebrae. The head is oblong, about half as broad as it is long; there are, according to Oken, fifteen teeth on each side of the lower jaw, and eighteen on each side of the upper. “Naturalists,” says Chabas, cited by Delitzsch, “count five species of crocodiles living in the Nile, but the hieroglyphics furnish a greater number of names determined by the sign of the crocodile.” There was certainly a great variety of species of this monster, and some which differ from all living species have, according to Delitzsch, also actually been found in Egyptian tombs. This animal is exceedingly fierce, wily, and treacherous, and its destructive voracity may be symbolized by the immense size of its mouth. Canst thou draw — Ëvmt, timshok. This, the first word in this abrupt and startling introduction of leviathan, appears without the mark of interrogation, unless, with Hitzig, we find it in the ãa, nose, with which the preceding description closes, and which also signifies “even,” “yea even,” and in ironical affirmation is used with the force of a question, as in the sneering remark of the serpent to Eve, Genesis 3:1, which commences with an ãa “really?” “is it really so?” Compare 1 Samuel 14:30; Habakkuk 2:5. In the opinion of some there is peculiar reason for the use of this word timshok, from the fact that the Egyptian hieroglyph msuh for crocodile, (Coptic, temsah; Arabic, timsah,) had not been Hebraized, and they (Ewald, Delitzsch, and Dillmann) find in the likeness of the Hebrew verb and the Egyptian noun, a possible play upon words: but all such constrained allusion is rather a play of critical fancy, and is unworthy of the occasion. The employment of the Hebrew verb may, possibly, serve as a finger pointer to the animal intended by livyathan. With a hook — The hhakkah was a draw net, (Delitzsch, Hitzig,) or, according to Ewald and Furst, an ordinary fishhook. Literally: Thou drawest out leviathan with a hoop net! Job’s moral prowess must have received a severe shock as the intensified irony of this verse — which, with great significance, waited not for an interrogation particle — burned down into his soul. Or his tongue — It is worthy of special notice, that the wisest naturalists of antiquity, Herodotus, (ii, 68,) Aristotle, Plutarch, (De Iside., 75,) Pliny, (H. N., 8:37,) etc., either denied that the crocodile had a tongue, or, in the case of Pliny, any use for it; while the text unpretendingly assumes its existence, indicating a minuteness of knowledge upon natural subjects, which should make modern naturalists wary of questioning the poet’s statements, even in a single point. The peculiar form of the question of the text seems to imply special knowledge of the structure of the tongue of the crocodile, which is fleshy and flat, and attached nearly the whole of its length to the jaw. On this account the animal is not able to protrude it forth. Sir Samuel Baker says, “The tongue of the crocodile is so unlike that of any other animal, that it can hardly be called by the same name; no portion throughout the entire length is detached from the flesh of the lower jaw — it is more like a thickened membrane from the gullet, to about half way along the length of the jaw.” — Nile Tributaries, 241. With a cord which thou lettest down — And with a cord dost thou press down his tongue? or “sinkest thou his tongue into the line?” The latter reading, of Schultens, Hirtzel, Delitzsch, is grammatically admissible, but as Dillmann well says, “presents an impracticable idea.” The question rather looks to the compressing of the tongue by some rope of the net alluded to in the preceding clause. The accompanying engraving exhibits a portion of an ancient Egyptian net now in the Berlin Museum. It was of a long form, says Wilkinson, like the common dragnet, with wooden floats on the upper, and leads on the lower, side; but, though it was sometimes let down from a boat, those who pulled it generally stood on the shore, and landed the fish on a shelving bank.

V. 2. Thorn-Or, with an iron hook, or instrument as sharp as a thorn; wherewith thou usest to carry little fishes.

Verse 2. Canst thou put a hook onto his nose?] Canst thou put a ring in his nose, and lead him about as thou dost thine ox? In the East they frequently lead thy oxen and buffaloes with a ring in their noses. So they do bulls and oxen in this country.

Bore his jaw through with a thorn?] Some have thought that this means, Canst thou deal with him as with one of those little fish which thou stringest on a rush by means of the thorn at its end? Or perhaps it may refer to those ornaments with which they sometimes adorned their horses, mules, camels, &c.

Verse 2. Canst thou put a hook — Hebrew, ˆmga, agmon, a bulrush, that is, a hook like a bulrush, with its head hanging down, as is expressed Isaiah 58:5; into his nose? — To hang him up by it for sale, or to carry him home for use, after thou hast drawn him out of the sea or river. Or bore his jaw through with a thorn? — Or with an iron hook, or instrument, as sharp as a thorn, wherewith thou usest to carry small fishes. Heath translates the former clause, Canst thou put a bandage about his nose? meaning, by the bandage, a rope of rushes, which was to tie his mouth fast; as the thorn, or iron instrument, was to prevent him from getting the bandage off. “It is usual,” Dr. Dodd says, “to this day, to fasten the jaws of the crocodile when taken.”

2. A hook — Hebrew, agmon, rush, cord, or reed. (Note, Job 40:21.) Wilkinson (iii, 6) says of the ancient Egyptians, they passed the stalk of a rush through the gills, and thus attached the fish together, in order the more conveniently to carry them home. Nose — The second word rendered nose is lehi, jaw bone or jaw. Thorn — Hhoahh, either a hook or a thorn. These four questions imply that the huge monster here described was taken with great difficulty at the time the scenes of this book took place. These questions do not contemplate the improvements made in modern times in all kinds of murderous instruments, but simply the relation man sustained in ancient times to this ferocious monster, and “are shaped according to the measure of power man had then obtained over nature.” — Delitzsch. Also, it is the beast as he then existed, in his primitive vigour and in his untamed wildness, that we have to consider, with his wondrous coat of armour and his powerful weapons of attack, which unquestionably made him the terror of beasts and men. In later times (about B.C. 450) Herodotus (ii, 70) describes at large the mode of taking the crocodile in his day.

V. 3. Supplications-Doth he dread thine anger or power? Or will he earnestly beg thy favour? It is a metaphor from men in distress, who use these means to them to whose power they are subject.

Verse 3. Will he make many supplications] There are several allusions in these verses to matters of which we know nothing.

Verses 3-6. Will he make supplications unto thee? — Doth he dread thy anger or power? Or will he earnestly beg thy favour? It is a metaphor from men in distress, who use these means to them to whose power they are subject. Will he make a covenant with thee? — Namely, to do thee faithful service, as the next words explain it. Canst thou bring him into bondage and force him to serve thee? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? — As children play with little birds kept in cages, which they do at their pleasure, and without any fear. Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? — For thy little daughters, which he mentions rather than little sons, because such are most subject to fear. Shall thy companions make a banquet of him? — Hebrew, wrky, jichru, concident, Vul. Lat., cut, or carve, him up? Shall thy friends, who assisted thee in taking him, feed upon him, or make a banquet for him; that is, for joy, that thou hast taken him? Shall they part him among the merchants? — As is usual in such cases, that all who are partners in the labour and hazard may partake of the profit also, and divide the spoil.

3. Many supplications unto thee? — That thou mayest set him, a captive, at liberty. The preceding verses evidently refer to the taking of the crocodile alive. Suspended on a rush cord, he is now represented as begging for his life. The ancients fancied that the dolphin, the supposed mortal enemy of the crocodile, would make supplications for its life. Eichhorn’s rendering. “Will he (sincerely) make moan unto thee,” were it correct, might justify his note based on a singular fancy of the ancients, that the crocodile moaned simply that he might entice the wanderer to sure destruction. Thence rises the idea, which, in the form of “crocodile’s tears,” has become proverbial.

Verse 4. Will he make a covenant] Canst thou hire him as thou wouldst a servant, who is to be so attached to thy family as to have his ear bored, that he may abide in thy house for ever? Is not this an allusion to the law, Exodus 21:1-6?

Verses 3-6. Will he make supplications unto thee? — Doth he dread thy anger or power? Or will he earnestly beg thy favour? It is a metaphor from men in distress, who use these means to them to whose power they are subject. Will he make a covenant with thee? — Namely, to do thee faithful service, as the next words explain it. Canst thou bring him into bondage and force him to serve thee? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? — As children play with little birds kept in cages, which they do at their pleasure, and without any fear. Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? — For thy little daughters, which he mentions rather than little sons, because such are most subject to fear. Shall thy companions make a banquet of him? — Hebrew, wrky, jichru, concident, Vul. Lat., cut, or carve, him up? Shall thy friends, who assisted thee in taking him, feed upon him, or make a banquet for him; that is, for joy, that thou hast taken him? Shall they part him among the merchants? — As is usual in such cases, that all who are partners in the labour and hazard may partake of the profit also, and divide the spoil.

4. Will he make a covenant? — The same phrase, tyrb trk, is used in the description in Genesis 15:18, of the covenant between the Lord and Abraham. The phrase means literally, “cut a covenant,” and reappears in the Greek and the Latin, and apparently springs from a like primeval custom common to them all. A servant for ever — Will he, as a consideration for sparing his life, enter into a covenant of perpetual service? On the hypothesis that this book was written subsequently to the Mosaic economy, there may be in the phrase “servant for ever,” an allusion to the mode by which Israelitish servants covenanted to serve for ever. Exodus 21:6.

Verse 5. 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? Ëנערותי 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.

Verses 3-6. Will he make supplications unto thee? — Doth he dread thy anger or power? Or will he earnestly beg thy favour? It is a metaphor from men in distress, who use these means to them to whose power they are subject. Will he make a covenant with thee? — Namely, to do thee faithful service, as the next words explain it. Canst thou bring him into bondage and force him to serve thee? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? — As children play with little birds kept in cages, which they do at their pleasure, and without any fear. Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? — For thy little daughters, which he mentions rather than little sons, because such are most subject to fear. Shall thy companions make a banquet of him? — Hebrew, wrky, jichru, concident, Vul. Lat., cut, or carve, him up? Shall thy friends, who assisted thee in taking him, feed upon him, or make a banquet for him; that is, for joy, that thou hast taken him? Shall they part him among the merchants? — As is usual in such cases, that all who are partners in the labour and hazard may partake of the profit also, and divide the spoil.

5. As with a bird — Catullus (ii, 1) speaks of “the sparrow, the delight of my girl.” Generically, the crocodile was probably the most untamable of animals, and yet even they have now and then been tamed to do the will of man. A Roman statue now in the British Museum represents an Egyptian tumbler performing on the back of a crocodile, as exhibited in the theatre at Rome. See note on Job 3:8; and Sharpe’s Bible Texts, page 96.

Verse 6. Shall thy companions make a banquet] Canst thou and thy friends feast on him as ye were wont to do on a camel sacrificed for this purpose? Or, canst thou dispose of his flesh to the merchants-to buyers, as thou wouldst do that of a camel or an ox? It is certain, according to Herodotus, lib. ii. c. 70, that they killed and ate crocodiles at Apollonople and Elephantis, in Egypt.

Verses 3-6. Will he make supplications unto thee? — Doth he dread thy anger or power? Or will he earnestly beg thy favour? It is a metaphor from men in distress, who use these means to them to whose power they are subject. Will he make a covenant with thee? — Namely, to do thee faithful service, as the next words explain it. Canst thou bring him into bondage and force him to serve thee? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? — As children play with little birds kept in cages, which they do at their pleasure, and without any fear. Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? — For thy little daughters, which he mentions rather than little sons, because such are most subject to fear. Shall thy companions make a banquet of him? — Hebrew, wrky, jichru, concident, Vul. Lat., cut, or carve, him up? Shall thy friends, who assisted thee in taking him, feed upon him, or make a banquet for him; that is, for joy, that thou hast taken him? Shall they part him among the merchants? — As is usual in such cases, that all who are partners in the labour and hazard may partake of the profit also, and divide the spoil.

6. The companions — µyrbj. There can be but little question that the word refers to partners in trade. Compare Luke 5:7-10. Fishermen in ancient Egypt were banded together in fraternities or guilds. Ruppell (Reisen, 1:254) speaks of the existence of such fraternities in Abyssinia, even at the present day. Make a banquet of him? — (Septuagint, Targum, Schultens;) but better, traffic in him, (Ewald, Delitzsch, Zockler,) a meaning for karah which corresponds with the Arabic kara, “to buy,” also with the Sanscrit kri, (kara;) and at the same time helps to confirm the rendering of the same word in Job 6:27, on which see note. The mention of “merchants” in the next clause substantiates such an interpretation, notwithstanding it is against the view of Gesenius and Conant, who, with Winer, (Lex., s.v.,) hold to the radical meaning of the word “to dig,” and read: “Will partners dig a pit for him?” But this substantially repeats what had been said before about catching the crocodile with a hook; and while it does violence to the parallelism, it gives an incongruous meaning. Carey follows Schultens in the speculation “that originally passing the contract of a purchase was signified or ratified by some such act as digging, as being perhaps significant that payment of a purchase was originally made in manual labor or tillage.” Merchants — µyn[nk, literally, Canaanites; unquestionably Phoenicians, who were pre-eminently the merchants of the ancient world. Isaiah, (Isaiah 23:8,) speaking of the merchants of Tyre, calls them, in the Hebrew, “Canaanites.” In Hosea 12:7, Canaan stands as the synonyme of merchant. Homer also speaks of the arrival of a Phoenician merchant, (Foinix,) “skilled in wiles, a greedy knave, working much ill to men.” — Odys., 14:288, 289. These merchants were notorious in the ancient world as slave dealers and kidnappers. The Phoenicians called their primogenitor [nk, (Cna,) chna, which, according to Sanchoniatho, was changed into Phoenix, thence “Phoenicians.” See Cory’s Anc. Frag., p. 16. A Phoenician coin is still extant bearing the inscription, “Laodicea, Mother in Canaan.” The Septuagint here, as well as frequently elsewhere, renders the word Canaanite, Phoenicians, Foinikwn eqnh. The reference in the text is to caravans like that of the Midianites, which in patriarchal times visited Egypt, bringing back with them various commodities taken in barter. “It is an evidence of the antiquity of this book, unless there is interposed the objection, which grows weaker the more it is studied, that the writer cunningly adapts every thing to the patriarchal times, without ever forgetting himself, or failing in any part of his picture.” — Tayler Lewis.

V. 7. Fill-A whale’s you may: but the skin of a crocodile is so hard that an iron or spear will not pierce it.

Verse 7. Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons?] This refers to some kind of harpoon work, similar to that employed in taking whales, and which they might use for some other kinds of animals; for the skin of the crocodile could not be pierced. Herrera says that he saw a crocodile defend itself against thirty men; and that they fired six balls at it without being able to wound it. It can only be wounded under his belly.

Verses 7, 8. Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? — A whale’s skin you may; but the skin of a crocodile is so hard that an iron, or spear, will not pierce it. It may, however, be understood also of the whale, for though they are taken at this day by piercing their skin with barbed irons, this art and way of taking them is but a late invention, and was not known in Job’s time; and, besides, he doth not speak of the absolute impossibility, but of the great difficulty of taking them. Lay thy hand upon him — Seize upon him, and take him by a strong hand, if thou darest to do so. Remember the battle, &c. — But ere thou attempt that, consider what thou art doing, and how hazardous thy enterprise is, and with what sort of a creature and with what disadvantage thou art going to contend; and, as it follows, do no more — Proceed no further; draw back thy hand, and be thankful for so great a deliverance. Or, as ãswt la, al tosaph, literally signifies, non addes, that is, as Mercer very justly explains it, if once thou lay thy hand upon him, or attempt to do it, thou wilt no more remember the engagement with him, or any one else; for he will quickly despatch thee. Heath, however, gives a different turn to the sense, thus: Be sure thou strike home; mind thy blow; rely not on a second stroke.

7. Barbed irons — Sukkoth; a general term for pointed weapons. Fish spears — Tsiltsal dagim. At the root of tsiltsal lies the idea of “tinkling,” or “clanging,” and “buzzing,” and is spoken of insects, cymbals, fishing instruments, etc. The spear was evidently hurled from the hand like a harpoon. The weapon was used in taking the life of the hippopotamus. See note, 40:24; also, Gesenius, Thesaurus, 1167.

b. If Job by no means dare to stand before the creature, how dare he appear before the Creator, prating of his rights, and urging preposterous claims upon a Being who has received nothing from man, and is, therefore, untrammelled by obligaions; but who is, on the contrary, the sole proprietor of all things, 8-11. “In these two questions, Who am I? and Who art thou? is expressed the ruling thought of the Almighty’s discourses.” — Hengstenberg.

V. 8. Lay-Seize upon him, if thou darest. Battle-But ere thou attempt it consider what thou art doing, and with whom, thou art going to fight. Do no more-Proceed no farther, draw back thy hand.

Verse 8. Lay thine hand upon him?] Mr. Heath translates, “Be sure thou strike home. Mind thy blow: rely not upon a second stroke.” Mr. Good translates:—

“Make ready thy hand against him.

Dare the contest: be firm.”

He is a dangerous animal; when thou attackest him, be sure of thy advantage; if thou miss, thou art ruined. Depend not on other advantages, if thou miss the first. Kill him at once, or he will kill thee.

Verses 7, 8. Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? — A whale’s skin you may; but the skin of a crocodile is so hard that an iron, or spear, will not pierce it. It may, however, be understood also of the whale, for though they are taken at this day by piercing their skin with barbed irons, this art and way of taking them is but a late invention, and was not known in Job’s time; and, besides, he doth not speak of the absolute impossibility, but of the great difficulty of taking them. Lay thy hand upon him — Seize upon him, and take him by a strong hand, if thou darest to do so. Remember the battle, &c. — But ere thou attempt that, consider what thou art doing, and how hazardous thy enterprise is, and with what sort of a creature and with what disadvantage thou art going to contend; and, as it follows, do no more — Proceed no further; draw back thy hand, and be thankful for so great a deliverance. Or, as ãswt la, al tosaph, literally signifies, non addes, that is, as Mercer very justly explains it, if once thou lay thy hand upon him, or attempt to do it, thou wilt no more remember the engagement with him, or any one else; for he will quickly despatch thee. Heath, however, gives a different turn to the sense, thus: Be sure thou strike home; mind thy blow; rely not on a second stroke.

8. Do no more — The Hebrew may be rendered either as an imperative or as a second person singular. He who enters alone upon an encounter with this monster will not care to try it again.

V. 9. Hope-The hope of taking or conquering him.

Verse 9. Behold, the hope] If thou miss thy first advantage, there is no hope afterwards: the very sight of this terrible monster would dissipate thy spirit, if thou hadst not a positive advantage against his life, or a place of sure retreat to save thine own.

Verses 9, 10. Behold, the hope of him is in vain — That is, the hope of taking, or conquering him. Shall not one be cast down, even at the sight of him? — Not only the fight, but the sight of him is most frightful. Such is even the sight of the whale to mariners, who fear the overturning of their vessel. And such is the sight of the crocodile, by which alone some have been frightened out of their senses. None is so fierce — Hebrew, rzka, achzer, so resolute, that dare stir him up — When he sleepeth or is quiet. This alludes to a custom of this creature, when sated with fish, to come on shore and sleep among the reeds. Who then is able to stand before me? — To contend with me his Creator, (as thou Job dost,) when one of my creatures is too hard for him?

9. Of him — The rash assailant.

V. 10. Stand-To the battle. Me-To contend with me who created him?

Verse 10. None is so fierce that dare stir him up] The most courageous of men dare not provoke the crocodile to fight, or even attempt to rouse him, when, sated with fish, he takes his repose among the reeds. The strongest of men cannot match him.

Who then is able] If thou canst not stand against the crocodile, one of the creatures of my hand, how canst thou resist me, who am his Maker? This is the use which God makes of the formidable description which he has thus far given of this terrible animal.

Verses 9, 10. Behold, the hope of him is in vain — That is, the hope of taking, or conquering him. Shall not one be cast down, even at the sight of him? — Not only the fight, but the sight of him is most frightful. Such is even the sight of the whale to mariners, who fear the overturning of their vessel. And such is the sight of the crocodile, by which alone some have been frightened out of their senses. None is so fierce — Hebrew, rzka, achzer, so resolute, that dare stir him up — When he sleepeth or is quiet. This alludes to a custom of this creature, when sated with fish, to come on shore and sleep among the reeds. Who then is able to stand before me? — To contend with me his Creator, (as thou Job dost,) when one of my creatures is too hard for him?

Ver. 10. None dare stir him up. When he sleeps, resting his side against a tree, the beasts are afraid to awake him.

10. Fierce — Zockler renders “foolhardy,” which is not to be preferred to the text, since the same word akzar, fierce, is in Job 30:21 applied by Job to God. Dare stir him up — The same Hebrew word rw[, “stir up,” is used in Job 3:8, of “raising up” leviathan, where it is implied that the only conceivable mode of dealing with him was by incantations — possibly spells of Satan, certainly by power supposed to be derived from the invisible world. See note on 3:8. The coincidence between the two passages should be noted, and is among many similar ones scattered through the Jehovistic section, which point to its integral oneness with the rest of the book. See Excursus VIII, page 281. In an inscription on a tablet at Karnak, Amun Ra thus addresses Thothmes III.: “I have made them behold thy majesty like unto a crocodile: he is the terrible master of the waters: no one ventures to approach him.”

V. 11. Prevented-Hath laid the first obligation upon me, for which I am indebted to him. Who can be before-hand with me in kindnesses, since all things under heaven are mine.

Verse 11. Who hath prevented me] Who is it that hath laid me under obligation to him? Do I need my creatures? All under the heavens is my property.

Verse 11. Who hath prevented me? — Namely, with offices or services done for me, and thereby hath laid the first obligation upon me, for which I am indebted to him? That I should repay him? — Should be engaged to requite his favours? Who came beforehand with me in kindnesses? inasmuch as all men, and all things under heaven, are mine, made by my hand, and enriched with all their endowments by my favour. The apostle quotes this sentiment for the silencing of all flesh in God’s presence, (Romans 11:35,) Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. As God doth not inflict upon us the evils we have deserved, so he doth bestow upon us the favours we have not deserved. Having said, and largely proved, that man could not contend with God in power, he now adds that he cannot contend with him in, or with respect to justice; because God oweth him nothing, nor is any way obliged to him: which having briefly hinted, to prevent an objection, he returns to his former argument, the description of leviathan.

11. Prevented me — First given to me. Tyndale’s rendering will express the idea: “Or who hathe given me anye thinge afore hand, that I am bounde to reward him agayne.” Comp. Job 34:13; Isaiah 40:13-15; and Romans 11:35-36. The lengthened description of leviathan is interrupted, that Job may be again reminded of its moral import — that God is governor; that his dominion is world wide, because all belongs to him: that he is under no obligations to his creatures on account of favours received; therefore, if he give, it must be exclusively of grace. “This digression in Jehovah’s speech does not disturb the harmony of the passage. It is an agreeable change, after the long description of the sea monster.” — Umbreit.

b — The divine Speaker resumes the description of leviathan, in order that he may dwell more at large upon the artistic skill and the esthetic wisdom displayed in the making of a reptile whose eyes, mouth, nostrils and breath are a source of terror: and show that even so insignificant a thing as his garment has been exquisitely elaborated, so as to serve the twofold object of covering and martial defence, 12-22.

Verse 12. I will not conceal his parts] This is most certainly no just translation of the original. The Vulgate is to this effect: I will not spare him: nor yield to his powerful words, framed for the purpose of entreaty. Mr. Good applies it to leviathan:—

“I cannot be confounded at his limbs and violence;

The strength and structure of his frame.”

The Creator cannot be intimidated at the most formidable of his own works: man may and should tremble; GOD cannot.

Verse 12. I will not conceal his parts — That is, I will particularly speak of them. Hebrew, wydb, bad-dav, his bars, or the members of his body, which are strong like bars of iron. R. Levi interprets it of his strength; nor his power — twrwbg rbdw, udebar geburoth, nec verbum fortitudinum, nor the word, or the matter, of his fortitude; nor his comely proportion — Which is more remarkable and admirable in a creature of such vast bulk: Hebrew, wkr[ ˆyjw, vechin gnercho, nor the gracefulness of his disposition, that is, the disposition or adjustment of his parts.

12. Conceal his parts — Hebrews, baddim; pass in silence his members. Same as in Job 18:13. See note. The divine Being has thus far spoken of the invincibility of leviathan; he will now speak of his bodily structure and mode of life. Nor his power — Literally, and the word of powers. rbd, word, Vaihinger understands to mean “fame;” Delitzsch, “proportion.”

V. 13. Discover-Or, uncover, or take off from him. Face-The upper or outward part of his garment, or, the garment itself: the word face being often redundant. And by the garment is meant the skin which covers the whole body; who dare attempt to touch his very skin? Much less to give him a wound. His double bridle-His fast jaws, which have some resemblance to a double bridle: whence the Greeks call those parts of the face which reach to the jaws on both sides, the bridles.

Verse 13. Who can discover the face of his garment?] Who can rip up the hide of this terrible monster? Who can take away his covering, in order to pierce his vitals?

Verse 13. Who can discover — hlg ym, mi gillah, Quis retexit, vel nudavit, Who hath uncovered, or made naked, or hath taken off from him, the face of his garment? — That is, his skin, which covers the whole body, and may be taken off from it like a garment. Who dare attempt to touch even his outward skin? much less dare any venture to endeavour to strip it off, or to give him a deep or deadly wound. Who can come to him with his double bridle? — To put it into his mouth, and lead him by it to thy stable and service, as he might do a horse? Or rather, (because he plainly seems to persist in describing the several parts of the leviathan’s body,) Who can come within his double bridle? or, as Heath translates it, his double row of teeth? namely, his vast jaws, which have some resemblance to a double bridle; whence the Greeks call those parts of the face which reach to the jaws on both sides the bridle. The crocodile’s mouth is exceedingly wide: Pliny says, strongly, “When he gapes, fit totum os, he becomes all mouth.”

13. Who can discover — Rather, uncover, in the sense of lift up, as one would a veil, his outside garment; his closely wrought and scaly coat of mail. The text beautifully calls it his “garment” — vwbl — a description of which is given at large, 15-17. The double bridle — Literally, the double of his bridle, is here used figuratively for the jaws, each of which contained a double row of teeth, numbering, in the upper jaw, as many as thirty-six, and in the lower, thirty; and as they were uncovered by the lip, presenting a frightful appearance. Into his double jaws, who enters?

V. 14. Doors-His mouth. If it be open, none dare enter within, and if it be shut, none dare open it.

Verse 14. The doors of his face?] His jaws which are most tremendous.

Verse 14. Who can open the doors of his face? — Namely, his mouth. If it be open, no one dares to enter within it, as he now said; and here he adds, none dare open it. His teeth are terrible round about — This is true of some kinds of whales, though others are said to have either none, or no terrible teeth; but it is more eminently and unquestionably true of the crocodile, of which this very thing is observed by all authors who write of it.

14. The doors of his face — His mighty jaws, which extend back of his eyes and ears. Martial (iii, 90) jests over a large mouth, and compares it to that of the crocodile of the Nile. His teeth… terrible — Literally, Round about his teeth is terror: within his teeth terror takes up its abode. The lofty conception of the speaker which clothed the war horse with thunder, (Job 39:19,) now finds within the ugly jaws of leviathan the dwelling place of terror.

V. 15. Shut-Closely compacted together, as things that are fastened together by a seal. This likewise is true of the crocodile, but the skin of the whale is smooth and entire without any scales at all.

Verse 15. His scales are his pride] They are impenetrable, as we have already seen.

Verses 15-17. His scales are his pride — He prides and pleases himself in his strong and mighty scales. Hebrew, µyngm yqypa, aphikee maginnim, robusta scutorum, the strength, or strong things, of his shields are his pride. Or, his body, or his back, (as hwag, gaavah, is rendered by many ancient and modern interpreters,) is the strength of shields, that is, fortified with scales strong as shields. Heath translates it, Strong scales cover his back. This is remarkably the case with the crocodile, whose strength is in his back, which is covered with impenetrable scales, whereas his belly is very soft, and easily pierced. If it be interpreted as meant of the whale, we must understand by these shields the several coats of his skin, which, though it be smooth and entire, and without scales, may nevertheless be said to be as strong as shields, (shields being formerly made of leather,) because it is exceeding hard and strong, and almost impenetrable, and that not only on his back, as in the crocodile, but also in the belly all over. “The outward, or scarf-skin of the whale,” indeed, “is no thicker than parchment; but this being removed, the real skin appears, of about an inch thick, and covering the fat, or blubber, that lies beneath, which is from eight to twelve inches in thickness. The muscles lie beneath this, and, like the flesh of quadrupeds, are very red and tough.” — Ency. Brit. But as the skin of the whale is all one entire piece, and does not consist of different parts joined together, the following clause, and the contents of the next two verses, do not seem to be properly applicable to it. Shut up together as with a close seal — That is, the shields, or scales, are closely compacted together, as things that are fastened by a seal. One is so near another, &c. — This plainly shows that the scales, or shields, are several, which certainly agrees better to the crocodile than to the whale, unless there be a sort of whales which have scales, as some have affirmed, but it is not yet known or proved. By these shields, or scales, the animal is not only kept warm, for no air can come between them, but kept safe, for no sword can pierce through those scales. They stick together that they cannot be sundered — It is exceeding difficult, and almost impossible, by any power or art, to sever them one from another.

15. Scales — Literally, strong shields, (Rosenmuller, Furst;) or, according to others, (Delitzsch, Hitzig,) furrows of the shields. Tristram observes that the whole head, back, and tail are covered with quadrangular horny plates or scales, which not only protect the body, so that a rifle ball glances from them as from a rock, but also serve as ballast, enabling the creature to sink rapidly on being disturbed, by merely expelling the air from its lungs. Shut up together… a close seal — Each shield fits as closely as the seal to the clay; nay, more closely, as the next verse shows, for no air can penetrate nature’s work; it is airtight. (See note on Job 38:14.)

Verse 16. One is so near to another] It has already been stated, that a musket-ball fired at him in any direction cannot make a passage through his scales.

Verses 15-17. His scales are his pride — He prides and pleases himself in his strong and mighty scales. Hebrew, µyngm yqypa, aphikee maginnim, robusta scutorum, the strength, or strong things, of his shields are his pride. Or, his body, or his back, (as hwag, gaavah, is rendered by many ancient and modern interpreters,) is the strength of shields, that is, fortified with scales strong as shields. Heath translates it, Strong scales cover his back. This is remarkably the case with the crocodile, whose strength is in his back, which is covered with impenetrable scales, whereas his belly is very soft, and easily pierced. If it be interpreted as meant of the whale, we must understand by these shields the several coats of his skin, which, though it be smooth and entire, and without scales, may nevertheless be said to be as strong as shields, (shields being formerly made of leather,) because it is exceeding hard and strong, and almost impenetrable, and that not only on his back, as in the crocodile, but also in the belly all over. “The outward, or scarf-skin of the whale,” indeed, “is no thicker than parchment; but this being removed, the real skin appears, of about an inch thick, and covering the fat, or blubber, that lies beneath, which is from eight to twelve inches in thickness. The muscles lie beneath this, and, like the flesh of quadrupeds, are very red and tough.” — Ency. Brit. But as the skin of the whale is all one entire piece, and does not consist of different parts joined together, the following clause, and the contents of the next two verses, do not seem to be properly applicable to it. Shut up together as with a close seal — That is, the shields, or scales, are closely compacted together, as things that are fastened by a seal. One is so near another, &c. — This plainly shows that the scales, or shields, are several, which certainly agrees better to the crocodile than to the whale, unless there be a sort of whales which have scales, as some have affirmed, but it is not yet known or proved. By these shields, or scales, the animal is not only kept warm, for no air can come between them, but kept safe, for no sword can pierce through those scales. They stick together that they cannot be sundered — It is exceeding difficult, and almost impossible, by any power or art, to sever them one from another.

16. No air — Rouahh, used in an active sense for air in motion, and poetically rendered by Scott, “no breath of wind.”

Verses 15-17. His scales are his pride — He prides and pleases himself in his strong and mighty scales. Hebrew, µyngm yqypa, aphikee maginnim, robusta scutorum, the strength, or strong things, of his shields are his pride. Or, his body, or his back, (as hwag, gaavah, is rendered by many ancient and modern interpreters,) is the strength of shields, that is, fortified with scales strong as shields. Heath translates it, Strong scales cover his back. This is remarkably the case with the crocodile, whose strength is in his back, which is covered with impenetrable scales, whereas his belly is very soft, and easily pierced. If it be interpreted as meant of the whale, we must understand by these shields the several coats of his skin, which, though it be smooth and entire, and without scales, may nevertheless be said to be as strong as shields, (shields being formerly made of leather,) because it is exceeding hard and strong, and almost impenetrable, and that not only on his back, as in the crocodile, but also in the belly all over. “The outward, or scarf-skin of the whale,” indeed, “is no thicker than parchment; but this being removed, the real skin appears, of about an inch thick, and covering the fat, or blubber, that lies beneath, which is from eight to twelve inches in thickness. The muscles lie beneath this, and, like the flesh of quadrupeds, are very red and tough.” — Ency. Brit. But as the skin of the whale is all one entire piece, and does not consist of different parts joined together, the following clause, and the contents of the next two verses, do not seem to be properly applicable to it. Shut up together as with a close seal — That is, the shields, or scales, are closely compacted together, as things that are fastened by a seal. One is so near another, &c. — This plainly shows that the scales, or shields, are several, which certainly agrees better to the crocodile than to the whale, unless there be a sort of whales which have scales, as some have affirmed, but it is not yet known or proved. By these shields, or scales, the animal is not only kept warm, for no air can come between them, but kept safe, for no sword can pierce through those scales. They stick together that they cannot be sundered — It is exceeding difficult, and almost impossible, by any power or art, to sever them one from another.

17. Joined one to another — The beauty of the original is lost. Literally, This holds fast to that, (Hitzig,) or “each to its fellow (literally, brother) is firmly attached.” They stick together — The same word in Job 38:30, was used of the formation of ice.

V. 18. Sneesings-This the crocodile is said frequently to do. Eyes-To which they seem very fitly compared, because the eyes of the crocodile are dull and dark under the water, but as soon as they appear above water, cast a bright and clear light; like the morning light, suddenly breaking forth after the dark night.

Verse 18. By his neesings a light doth shine] It is very likely that this may be taken literally. When he spurts up the water out of his nostrils, the drops form a sort of iris or rainbow. We have seen this effect produced when, in certain situations and state of the atmosphere, water was thrown up forcibly, so as to be broken into small drops, which has occasioned an appearance like the rainbow.

The eyelids of the morning.] It is said that, under the water, the eyes of the crocodile are exceedingly dull; but when he lifts his head above water they sparkle with the greatest vivacity. Hence the Egyptians, in their hieroglyphics, made the eyes of the crocodile the emblem of the morning. Anatolhn legontev duo ofqalmouv krokodeilou

zwografousi.-HORAPP. Egypt. Ieroglyph., lib. i., c. 65. This is a most remarkable circumstance, casts light on ancient history, and shows the rigid correctness of the picture drawn above.

The same figure is employed by the Greek poets.

cruseav hmerav blefaron.

“The eyelid of the golden day.”

Soph. Antig. ver. 103.

Nuktov afeggev blefaron.

“The darksome eyelid of the night.”

Eurip. Phæniss. ver. 553.

Verse 18. By his neesings a light doth shine — Literally, His sneezing causes the light to sparkle. If he sneeze, or spout up water, it is like a light shining, either with the froth, or the light of the sun shining through it. The crocodile, in particular, is said frequently to sneeze. His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning — The eyes of the whale are said in the night-time to shine like a flame; and the eyes of the crocodile, although they are dull and dark under the water, yet, as soon as they appear above water, cast a bright and clear light, like that of the morning suddenly breaking forth after the dark night. “I think,” says Dr. Young, “this gives us as great an image of the thing it would express as can enter the thoughts of man. It is not improbable that the Egyptians stole their hieroglyphic for the morning, which is the crocodile’s eye, from this passage, though no commentator I have seen mentions it. It is easy to conceive how the Egyptians should be both readers and admirers of the writings of Moses, whom I suppose the author of this poem.” The doctor paraphrases this clause thus: “Large is his front; and when his burnish’d eyes

Lift their broad lids, the morning seems to rise.”

18. By his neesings a light doth shine — Rather, His sneezings flash forth light. “This delicate observation of nature is here compressed into three words; in this concentration of whole grand thoughts and pictures we recognise the older poet.” — Delitzsch. This animal, as travellers have remarked from the days of Herodotus to the present, delights to he on the sandbank, turning his open jaws to the sun — an act which naturally gives rise to sneezing. The sun’s light, shining through the abundant spray thrown from the nostrils, produces a striking luminous appearance. A like delicate observation of the hippopotamus is made by Dr. Schweinfurth, an African traveller: “In the sunlight the fine spray emitted from their nostrils gleamed like a ray of light.” — Heart of Africa, 2:315. The Jews, according to Buxtorf, (col. 1599,) connect with this text a notion that sneezing saves life by the light which it gives. In keeping with this conceit, the Jews, says Chappelow, when any one sneezes, say: “A happy life to thee.” The eyelids of the morning — (See Job 3:9.) The Egyptian made the flashing, cat-like eyes of this animal the symbol of the morning. A passage from Horus-Apollos, who wrote on hieroglyphs about 500 A.D., furnishes a remarkable illustration: “To describe the dawn, the Egyptians depict two eyes of a crocodile, inasmuch as the eyes make their appearance out of the deep before its entire body.”

V. 19. Lamps-This also better agrees with the crocodile, which breathes like the river-horse, of which ancient authors affirm, that his nostrils are very large, and he breathes forth a fiery smoke like that of a furnace.

Verse 19. Out of his mouth go burning lamps] Dr. Young, in his paraphrase, has a sensible note on this passage:—”This is nearer the truth than at first view may be imagined. The crocodile, according to naturalists, lying long under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath long repressed is hot, and bursts out so violently, that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse does not repress his breath by any means so long, neither is he so fierce and animated; yet the most correct of poets ventures to use the same metaphor concerning him, volvit sub naribus ignem. By this I would caution against a false opinion of the boldness of Eastern metaphors, from passages ill understood.”

Verses 19-21. Out of his mouth go burning lamps — “This,” says Dr. Young, “is nearer truth than at first view may be imagined. The crocodile, says the naturalists, lying long under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath, long repressed, is hot, and bursts out so violently that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse suppresses not his breath, by any means, so long, neither is he so fierce and animated; yet the most correct of poets venture to use the same metaphor concerning him. By this I would caution against a false opinion of the eastern boldness, (the boldness of their metaphors,) from passages in them ill understood.” We add the doctor’s paraphrase on these verses:

“His bulk is charged with such a furious soul,

That clouds of smoke from his spread nostrils roll,

As from a furnace; and, when roused his ire,

Fate issues from his jaws in streams of fire.”

Smoke, as out of a caldron — Hebrew, ˆmga, agmon, sometimes rendered bulrush, and, verse 2, put for a hook; but the word likewise signifies a pool, or stagnating water, and is here rendered a caldron, because a caldron sends forth a great smoke, as a pool doth vapours. By a like figure, the great brazen laver, in the temple, was called a sea, on account of the great quantity of water which it contained. His breath kindleth coals — A hyperbolical expression, signifying only extraordinary heat.

19. Burning lamps — Flames better expresses the root idea of the Hebrew lappidh, and it is the rendering of Gesenius. A forcible figure for the burning, fiery breath.

Verses 19-21. Out of his mouth go burning lamps — “This,” says Dr. Young, “is nearer truth than at first view may be imagined. The crocodile, says the naturalists, lying long under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath, long repressed, is hot, and bursts out so violently that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse suppresses not his breath, by any means, so long, neither is he so fierce and animated; yet the most correct of poets venture to use the same metaphor concerning him. By this I would caution against a false opinion of the eastern boldness, (the boldness of their metaphors,) from passages in them ill understood.” We add the doctor’s paraphrase on these verses:

“His bulk is charged with such a furious soul,

That clouds of smoke from his spread nostrils roll,

As from a furnace; and, when roused his ire,

Fate issues from his jaws in streams of fire.”

Smoke, as out of a caldron — Hebrew, ˆmga, agmon, sometimes rendered bulrush, and, verse 2, put for a hook; but the word likewise signifies a pool, or stagnating water, and is here rendered a caldron, because a caldron sends forth a great smoke, as a pool doth vapours. By a like figure, the great brazen laver, in the temple, was called a sea, on account of the great quantity of water which it contained. His breath kindleth coals — A hyperbolical expression, signifying only extraordinary heat.

20. A… caldron — Thus Hitzig, Delitzsch, etc. The same word, agmon, appears in the second verse, and is here correspondingly read by some, kindled reeds. See note on Job 40:21.

V. 21. Kindleth coals-An hyperbolical expression, denoting extraordinary heat.

Verses 19-21. Out of his mouth go burning lamps — “This,” says Dr. Young, “is nearer truth than at first view may be imagined. The crocodile, says the naturalists, lying long under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath, long repressed, is hot, and bursts out so violently that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse suppresses not his breath, by any means, so long, neither is he so fierce and animated; yet the most correct of poets venture to use the same metaphor concerning him. By this I would caution against a false opinion of the eastern boldness, (the boldness of their metaphors,) from passages in them ill understood.” We add the doctor’s paraphrase on these verses:

“His bulk is charged with such a furious soul,

That clouds of smoke from his spread nostrils roll,

As from a furnace; and, when roused his ire,

Fate issues from his jaws in streams of fire.”

Smoke, as out of a caldron — Hebrew, ˆmga, agmon, sometimes rendered bulrush, and, verse 2, put for a hook; but the word likewise signifies a pool, or stagnating water, and is here rendered a caldron, because a caldron sends forth a great smoke, as a pool doth vapours. By a like figure, the great brazen laver, in the temple, was called a sea, on account of the great quantity of water which it contained. His breath kindleth coals — A hyperbolical expression, signifying only extraordinary heat.

Ver. 21. His breath kindleth coals. His stomach is so hot that his breath, on a cold morning, appears like the steam of boiling water. The hyperbole of the ancients was sometimes very strong. The vine is said to have boughs like the cedar. Psalm 80:10.

21. His breath kindleth coals — A highly poetical description of the beast when engaged in the pursuit of his prey, or when inflamed with rage. In equally bold and high-wrought figure, Ovid describes a ferocious wild boar: Fulmen ab ore venit, frondesque adflatibus ardent: “Lightning comes from his mouth, and the boughs burn with his breath.”

V. 22. And sorrow-Sorrow is his companion and harbinger, which attends upon him wheresoever he goes. So anger and fear are said by the poets to accompany the God of war.

Verse 22. In his neck remaineth strength] Literally, “strength has its dwelling in his neck.” The neck is the seat of strength of most animals; but the head and shoulders must be here meant, as the crocodile has no neck, being shaped nearly like a lizard.

And sorrow is turned into joy before him.] hbad xwdt wynplw ulephanaiv taduts deabah; “And destruction exulteth before him.” This is as fine an image as can well be conceived. It is in the true spirit of poetry, the legitimate offspring of the genie createur. Our translation is simply insignificant.

Verses 22-24. In his neck remaineth strength, &c. — Houbigant’s translation of this is excellent; Strength has its dwelling (so z[ ˆyly, jalin gnoz, literally signifies) on his neck — His head and body are firmly joined together, and therefore what may be called his neck is exceeding strong. This is equally applicable to the whale and the crocodile, neither of which has any more neck than other fishes have. And sorrow is turned into joy before him — The approach of any enemy, which usually causeth fear and sorrow in others, fills him with joy, as being desirous of nothing more than fighting. Or, as the Hebrew may be rendered, sorrow rejoices, or dances, or triumphs, &c., that is, is prevalent and victorious; and quickly invades and conquers all those men, or other creatures, which are in his way. Sorrow is his companion, or harbinger, which attends upon him wheresoever he goes. So anger and fear are said by the poets to accompany the god of war into the battle. Houbigant translates the clause, Before him marches destruction; he makes terrible work wherever he comes. The flakes of his flesh are joined together — Or, the parts of his flesh which stick out, or hang loose, and are ready to fall from other fishes, or creatures. The word flesh is sometimes used of fishes also, as Leviticus 11:11; 1 Corinthians 15:39. They cannot be moved — Without difficulty, namely, out of their place, or from the other members of the body. His heart is as hard as a stone — His courage is invincible; he is void of fear for himself, and of compassion for others, which is often termed, hardness of heart. As hard as a piece of the nether millstone — Which being to bear the weight of the upper, ought to be the harder and stronger of the two. On these last three verses also, Dr. Young’s paraphrase is worthy of the reader’s attention:

“Strength on his ample shoulder sits in state;

His well-join’d limbs are dreadfully complete;

His flakes of solid flesh are slow to part;

As steel his nerves, as adamant his heart.”

22. Remaineth — Literally, pass the night, same as in Job 19:4. A literal rendering brings out the personification: —

In his neck lodgeth strength;

Before him runneth terror.

His neck at night is the resting place of strength; terror is his avant-courier by day; “terror bounds before him.” — Renan. Is turned into joy before him — The Septuagint gives better sense, as it more correctly interprets the original — runs before him. The word xwd, douts, means “to jump,” “to leap,” and in the Targum is used for “rejoicing,” “leaping for joy:” a sense our translators have entered in the margin. The Arabic name for the Sphinx is “father of terror.”

g. This section resumes the subject left at verse 17, (from which verses 18-22 are a digression, setting forth the terribleness of leviathan,) and shows that even the fleshy parts of this monster have been fitted close to it like a metal casting, and his heart made firm as a stone, and that even his path through the mire resembles the impress of a threshing machine; so that he fears neither the assaults of man nor those of the entire brute creation. Monster of monsters! there is not on earth a dominion like his, who is made without fear, and who looketh down upon every high thing, 23-34.

Verse 23. The flakes of his flesh] His muscles are strongly and firmly compacted.

Verses 22-24. In his neck remaineth strength, &c. — Houbigant’s translation of this is excellent; Strength has its dwelling (so z[ ˆyly, jalin gnoz, literally signifies) on his neck — His head and body are firmly joined together, and therefore what may be called his neck is exceeding strong. This is equally applicable to the whale and the crocodile, neither of which has any more neck than other fishes have. And sorrow is turned into joy before him — The approach of any enemy, which usually causeth fear and sorrow in others, fills him with joy, as being desirous of nothing more than fighting. Or, as the Hebrew may be rendered, sorrow rejoices, or dances, or triumphs, &c., that is, is prevalent and victorious; and quickly invades and conquers all those men, or other creatures, which are in his way. Sorrow is his companion, or harbinger, which attends upon him wheresoever he goes. So anger and fear are said by the poets to accompany the god of war into the battle. Houbigant translates the clause, Before him marches destruction; he makes terrible work wherever he comes. The flakes of his flesh are joined together — Or, the parts of his flesh which stick out, or hang loose, and are ready to fall from other fishes, or creatures. The word flesh is sometimes used of fishes also, as Leviticus 11:11; 1 Corinthians 15:39. They cannot be moved — Without difficulty, namely, out of their place, or from the other members of the body. His heart is as hard as a stone — His courage is invincible; he is void of fear for himself, and of compassion for others, which is often termed, hardness of heart. As hard as a piece of the nether millstone — Which being to bear the weight of the upper, ought to be the harder and stronger of the two. On these last three verses also, Dr. Young’s paraphrase is worthy of the reader’s attention:

“Strength on his ample shoulder sits in state;

His well-join’d limbs are dreadfully complete;

His flakes of solid flesh are slow to part;

As steel his nerves, as adamant his heart.”

23. Firm in themselves — Literally, molten upon them. On him is no flabby, pendulous flesh as on other animals; all is welded together as if made of metal.

V. 24. Nether mill-stone-Which being to bear the weight of the upper, ought to be the harder and stronger of the two.

Verse 24. Hard as a piece of the nether millstone.] Which is required to be harder than that which runs above.

Verses 22-24. In his neck remaineth strength, &c. — Houbigant’s translation of this is excellent; Strength has its dwelling (so z[ ˆyly, jalin gnoz, literally signifies) on his neck — His head and body are firmly joined together, and therefore what may be called his neck is exceeding strong. This is equally applicable to the whale and the crocodile, neither of which has any more neck than other fishes have. And sorrow is turned into joy before him — The approach of any enemy, which usually causeth fear and sorrow in others, fills him with joy, as being desirous of nothing more than fighting. Or, as the Hebrew may be rendered, sorrow rejoices, or dances, or triumphs, &c., that is, is prevalent and victorious; and quickly invades and conquers all those men, or other creatures, which are in his way. Sorrow is his companion, or harbinger, which attends upon him wheresoever he goes. So anger and fear are said by the poets to accompany the god of war into the battle. Houbigant translates the clause, Before him marches destruction; he makes terrible work wherever he comes. The flakes of his flesh are joined together — Or, the parts of his flesh which stick out, or hang loose, and are ready to fall from other fishes, or creatures. The word flesh is sometimes used of fishes also, as Leviticus 11:11; 1 Corinthians 15:39. They cannot be moved — Without difficulty, namely, out of their place, or from the other members of the body. His heart is as hard as a stone — His courage is invincible; he is void of fear for himself, and of compassion for others, which is often termed, hardness of heart. As hard as a piece of the nether millstone — Which being to bear the weight of the upper, ought to be the harder and stronger of the two. On these last three verses also, Dr. Young’s paraphrase is worthy of the reader’s attention:

“Strength on his ample shoulder sits in state;

His well-join’d limbs are dreadfully complete;

His flakes of solid flesh are slow to part;

As steel his nerves, as adamant his heart.”

24. Hard… millstone — Hard as the nether millstone. This was, in general, compact and heavy, often made of sandstone, and quite thick, while the upper one, having to be driven round by the hand, was made lighter, and of more porous texture. The hardness spoken of may be the cold, sluggish action of the heart, that characterizes all the saurians, which, on this account, are distinguished as cold-blooded; or the disposition of the reptile, of which AElian says, he is the most pitiless of animals.

V. 25. Raiseth-Upon the top of the waters. Mighty-Even the stout-hearted. Breakings-By reason of their great danger and distress; which is expressed by this very word, Psalm 60:2 Jonah 2:4. Purify-Those who ordinarily live in the neglect of God, they cry unto God in their trouble, and endeavour to purge their consciences from the guilt of their sins.

Verse 25. By reason of breakings they purify themselves.] No version, either ancient or modern, appears to have understood this verse; nor is its true sense known. The Septuagint have, “When he turns himself, he terrifies all the quadrupeds on the earth.” The original is short and obscure: wacjty משברים mishshebarim yithchattau. Mr. Good takes the plural termination ים im, from the first word, of which he makes the noun ים yam, the sea, and thus translates it, “They are confounded at the tumult of the sea.” In this I can find no more light than in our own. Mr. Heath has, “For very terror they fall to the ground.” The translations of it are as unsatisfactory as they are various. I shall give both the verses from Coverdale:—

His herte is as harde as a stone; and as fast as the stythye (anvil) that the hammer man smyteth upon: when he goeth the mightiest off all are afrayed, and the waives hevy. The dull swell in the waters proclaims his advance; and when this is perceived, the stout-hearted tremble.

Verse 25. When he raiseth up himself — Showing himself upon the top of the waters; the mighty are afraid — Even the stout-hearted, who used to be above fear. By reason of breakings — By reason of their great danger and distress; which is expressed by this very word, Psalm 60:2; Jonah 1:4. They purify themselves — Those who ordinarily live in the neglect of God; they cry unto God in their trouble, and endeavour to purge their consciences from the guilt of their sins. Houbigant translates this verse, When he raiseth up himself, the mighty flee; the princes quit their purposed journey. But Heath interprets the last clause thus: for very terror they fall to the ground; and he observes, very properly, that the word rbv, sheber, here used, strongly expresses the idea of terror; our English word shiver is thought to have been derived from it. Henry, who understands this, and all the other parts of this description, of the whale, thus paraphrases this verse: “When he raiseth up himself, like a moving mountain in the great waters, even the mighty are afraid, lest he overturn their ships, or do them some other mischief: by reason of the breakings he makes in the water, which threaten death, they purify themselves, confess their sins, betake themselves to their prayers, and get ready for death.” Dr. Young, who understands it of the crocodile, to which it is manifestly more applicable, interprets it thus:

“When late awaked, he rears him from the floods,

And stretching forth his stature to the clouds,

Writhes in the sun aloft his scaly height,

And strikes the distant hills with transient light;

Far round are fatal damps of terror spread,

The mighty fear, nor blush to own their dread.”

Ver. 25. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid; that is, the beasts of the forest. This animal is the dragon or crocodile. A traveller in Africa reports that a tiger leaped on a sleeping crocodile, and began to tear his scales. The dragon by some means got hold of the tiger’s foot, and dragged him into the river, where he soon discoloured the water with his gore.

25. By reason of breakings — The word µyrbv, from shabar, (Arabic shabara,) “to break,” blends the twofold effect of fear — the breaking down of the nervous force, the morale of the man, and the confounding, the bewildering, of the judgment. Among Orientals terror is expressed by verbs of breaking, as Bochartus has observed. They purify themselves — wacjty — The meaning of the hithpael form of the verb hhatah is not essentially different from the kal form, commented upon in Job 5:24, (which see,) and may be read, they miss their way; or, according to Delitzsch and Zockler, miss their aim, so confused are these “heroes” by reason of overpowering fear. The word is spoken, says Gesenius, of those who wander from the way, driven into precipitate flight by excessive terror. (Thes., 465.) Like our own translators, who mystified the passage by rendering the word hhatah “purify,” Hengstenberg adopts this secondary meaning of “absolving,” and thinks that in their great fear they betake themselves to God as their only hope, “in other words, repeat a pater noster.” “Absolution (he says) is the means of obtaining help from God.” His views may serve as a gloss upon our Authorized Version, but will not help toward the interpretation of the passage.

V. 26. Hold-Heb. cannot stand, cannot endure the stroke, but will be broken by it. The crocodile’s skin, no sword, nor dart, nor musquet bullet can pierce.

Verse 26. Habergeon.] The hauberk, the Norman armour for the head, neck, and breast, formed of rings. See on Nehemiah 4:16.

Verse 26. The sword of him that layeth at him — That approacheth to him, and dares to strike at him; cannot hold — Hebrew, µwqt ylb, beli takum, cannot stand. Either, 1st, Cannot endure the stroke, but will be broken by it; or, 2d, Cannot take hold of him, or abide fixed in him; but is instantly beaten back by the excessive hardness of his skin, which cannot be pierced by it. This also seems much better to agree to the crocodile, whose skin no sword, nor dart, nor (as some add) musket-ball can pierce, than to the whale, whose skin is easily pierced, as experience shows, except the whales here spoken of were of another kind than those we are acquainted with. Nor the habergeon — Hebrew, hyrv, shirjah, which the margin of our Bible renders, breast-plate, and Ab. Ezra, a coat of mail, as the word means 1 Samuel 17:38. But Heath and Houbigant translate it here, the pike; and it evidently means some missile weapon.

26. The sword of him that layeth at him, etc. — If one (literally, he who) reaches him with the sword. Cannot hold — Literally, stand, stand fast, keep hold. The spear — Hhanith, Delitzsch erroneously supposes to be the long lance, in contradistinction to the kidhon. See on verse 29. The dart — Massa’h, from nasa’h. “to move on,” “to hasten,” probably signified some missile. The Septuagint and Targum regard this and the preceding word as one, and render it “spear.” The habergeon — French, haubergeon. The rendering of our Authorized Version answers to the hauberk, the old Norman armour for the neck, head, and breast, formed of rings. (Dr. Clarke.) The shiryah, of which the Hebrew speaks, was a coat of mail. (Furst.) Others suppose some kind of missile to be meant. “The poet means to say, the defensive weapons, also, are useless, and that the breastplate of the warrior affords no protection against the monster.” — Umbreit.

Verses 27, 28. He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood — He neither fears, nor feels, the blows of the one more than of the other. The arrow cannot make him flee — Hebrew, the son of the bow, as it is elsewhere called, the son of the quiver, Lamentations 3:13; the quiver being, as it were, the mother, or womb, that bears it, and the bow as the father that begets it, or sendeth it forth. Sling-stones — Great stones cast out of slings, which have a great force and efficacy, 2 Chronicles 26:14; are turned with him into stubble — Hurt him no more than a blow with a little stubble. Heath renders this clause, He throweth about sling-stones like stubble; and Houbigant, Sling-stones are no more to him than stubble. An extraordinary instance of the strength of a crocodile is related by Maillet. “I saw one,” says he, “twelve feet long, which had not eaten any thing for thirty-five days, having had its mouth tied close during that interval, which, from a single blow from its tail, overturned five or six men together, with a bale of coffee, as easily as I could overturn six men at a game of draughts.” What force then must one of twenty feet long have in its full strength, and not weakened by such a fast? Thevenot also speaks of one that he had stripped of his skin, and says, that “it was so strong, though but eight feet in length, that after they had turned him upon his back, and four persons stood upon him with both their feet, while they were cutting open his belly, he moved himself with so much force as to throw them off with violence.” See Maillet’s Description of Egypt, page 33, and Thevenot, part 2. page 72.

27. He esteemeth iron as straw — An expression some suppose to refer to the enormous power of the crocodile’s snap. Kitto cites a case which occurred in Ceylon, in which an enraged alligator bit the barrel of a gun completely in two. On the contrary, the text describes the crocodile’s contemptuous disregard of the missiles employed by the ancients in their assaults upon him.

V. 28. Turned-Hurt him no more than a blow with a little stubble.

Verses 27, 28. He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood — He neither fears, nor feels, the blows of the one more than of the other. The arrow cannot make him flee — Hebrew, the son of the bow, as it is elsewhere called, the son of the quiver, Lamentations 3:13; the quiver being, as it were, the mother, or womb, that bears it, and the bow as the father that begets it, or sendeth it forth. Sling-stones — Great stones cast out of slings, which have a great force and efficacy, 2 Chronicles 26:14; are turned with him into stubble — Hurt him no more than a blow with a little stubble. Heath renders this clause, He throweth about sling-stones like stubble; and Houbigant, Sling-stones are no more to him than stubble. An extraordinary instance of the strength of a crocodile is related by Maillet. “I saw one,” says he, “twelve feet long, which had not eaten any thing for thirty-five days, having had its mouth tied close during that interval, which, from a single blow from its tail, overturned five or six men together, with a bale of coffee, as easily as I could overturn six men at a game of draughts.” What force then must one of twenty feet long have in its full strength, and not weakened by such a fast? Thevenot also speaks of one that he had stripped of his skin, and says, that “it was so strong, though but eight feet in length, that after they had turned him upon his back, and four persons stood upon him with both their feet, while they were cutting open his belly, he moved himself with so much force as to throw them off with violence.” See Maillet’s Description of Egypt, page 33, and Thevenot, part 2. page 72.

28. The arrow — Literally, the son of a bow. Compare “sons of his quiver,” Lamentations 3:13. See note on chap. 5. 7.

Verse 29. 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!

Ver. 29. Darts are counted as stubble. The whale cannot here be understood, for his body is exposed to the harpoon or dart: but of the scales of the crocodile all this is true.

29. Darts — Thothahh. Either clubs, battle axe, or bludgeon. (Furst.) The like meaning of the same word in the Arabic favours the first of these definitions. The boomerang, or club-stick, (now called lissan, tongue,) was much in use among the ancient Egyptian soldiers, and, in close combat, was really a formidable weapon, as the experience of modern times sufficiently testifies. It was about two and a half feet long, and made of hard acacia wood. See Wilkinson, Anc. Egyptians, (P.A., i, p. 365.) The spear — The kidhon (javelin) or spear was borne upon the shoulder, as in the case of Goliath, (1 Samuel 17:6, 7,) and was in common use among the Babylonians and Persians. Jeremiah 6:23; 50:42.

V. 30. Stones-His skin is so impenetrable, that the sharpest stones or shells are as easy unto him as the mire.

Verse 30. Sharp stones are under him] So hard and impenetrable are his scales, that splinters of flint are the same to him as the softest reeds.

Verse 30. Sharp stones — crj ydwdj, chadudee chares, acumina testæ, vel testacea, sharp points of potsherds, are under him — He can repose himself on rocks, or stones, whose edges, or points, are sharp, like those of shells, or broken potsherds; and yet he is not sensible of them, says R. Levi. and Ab. Ezra. His skin is so hard and impenetrable that they make no impression upon him, but are as easy to him as a bed of clay. He spreadeth sharp pointed things: &c. — Hebrew, xwrj, charutz, acutum, any thing which cuts, or makes an incision. The word also means, and is rendered by Bochart, tribula, an instrument used in thrashing corn, a kind of sledge, furnished with sharp iron wheels, which was drawn over the straw by oxen, and at the same time thrashed out the corn, and cut the straw into small pieces, reducing it to chaff. Heath, therefore, translates the verse, His nether parts are like sharp potsherds: he dasheth himself on the mud like a thrashing-cart.

30. Sharp stones — Literally, pieces of potsherd. For description of potsherd, see Job 2:8. AElian, (H.A., 10:24,) also compares the sharp-edged scales, on the under side of the crocodile, to pointed potsherds, ostrakoiv karteroiv. Sharp pointed things — Hharouts, signifies “a threshing sledge;” also “gold;” a sense in which Carey takes it, who remarks “that the crocodile is said to spread gold upon the mud when his tail, the upper part of which is of a saffron colour, trails along, or lies upon, a bed of mud… A kind of seeming incongruity is doubtless intended in the notion of the crocodile spreading gold upon the mud. It is what man would not do.… The crocodile, on the contrary, spreads the gold-entinted portions of his belly and tail on the mud.” The word is almost unanimously accepted to signify an instrument for threshing, and is here used tropically. The impression that the tail of the animal (which is half his length) makes on the mire, is as if a threshing sledge had lain there. “This sledge consisted simply of two planks fastened together side by side, and bent upward in front; precisely as is the common stone-sledge of New England, though less heavy. Many holes are bored in the bottom beneath, and into these are fixed sharp fragments of hard stone.” — Dr. Robinson, ii, p. 307. “This comparison is somewhat ironical, as it is not customary to spread out threshing instruments ‘upon the mire,’ but upon the fruits of the ground.” — Umbreit.

V. 31. Boil-To swell, and foam, and froth by his strong and vehement motion, as any liquor does when it is boiled in a pot, especially boiling ointment. The sea-The great river Nile, is called a sea, both in scripture, as Isaiah 11:15, and in other authors, as Euphrates is called the sea of Babylon, Isaiah 21:1 Jeremiah 51:36. Lakes also are most frequently called seas both in the Old and New Testament: and in such lakes the crocodiles are as well as in the Nile.

Verse 31. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot] This is occasioned by strongly agitating the waters at or near the bottom; and the froth which arises to the top from this agitation may have the appearance of ointment. But several travellers say that the crocodile has a very strong scent of musk, and that he even imparts this smell to the water through which he passes, and therefore the text may be taken literally. This property of the crocodile has been noticed by several writers.

Verses 31, 32. He maketh the deep — The deep waters; to boil like a pot — To swell, and foam, and froth, by his strong and vehement motion, as any liquor does when it is boiled in a pot, especially boiling ointment. The sea — Either the great sea, the proper place of the whale, Psalm 104:25, or the great river Nile, which is called a sea, both in Scripture, as Isaiah 11:15, and in other authors, as Euphrates is called the sea of Babylon, Isaiah 21:1; Jeremiah 51:36. Lakes also are most frequently called seas, both in the Old and New Testament; and in such lakes the crocodiles are, as well as in the Nile. He maketh a path to shine after him — Houbigant renders the text, He leaves behind him a shining path; that is, the way in which he moves appears shining and conspicuous, as when a ship sails, and leaves a visible path behind it, which in the night appears to shine. One would think the deep to be hoary — It is so covered with froth and foam that it looks as if it were grown old, and become hoary.

31. The sea — The Arabs still call the Nile bahr, a sea. Pot of ointment — This figure rests, as some suppose, upon the strong, musk-like odour emitted by the crocodile. “There is a follicle, of the bigness of a hazel nut, under the shoulders of the old crocodiles; this contains a thick matter which smells like musk. The Egyptians are very anxious to get this when they kill a crocodile, it being a perfume much esteemed by the grandees.” — HASSELQUIST, Travels, page 215. The preparation of perfumes, in ancient times, evidently involved the process of boiling. Wilkinson’s statement, that ointment (found in an alabaster vase) two or three thousand years old still retained its odour, seems to indicate a lost art. (Ancient Egyptians, i, p. 34.) A scene which Dr. Livingstone describes gives a curious insight into the habits of the crocodile, and forcibly illustrates this and the following verse: “The corpse of a boy floated past the ship; a monstrous crocodile rushed at it with the speed of a greyhound, caught it, and shook it as a terrier dog does a rat. Others dashed at the prey, each with his powerful tail causing the water to churn and froth as he ferociously tore off a piece. In a few seconds it was all gone.” — Zambesi, p. 477.

V. 32. Shine-By the white froth or foam upon the waters. The same may be observed in the wake of a ship by night.

Verse 32. He maketh a path to shine after him] In certain states of the weather a rapid motion through the water disengages many sparks of phosphoric fire. I have seen this at sea; once particularly, on a fine clear night, with a good breeze, in a fast-sailing vessel, I leaned over the stern, and watched this phenomenon for hours. The wake of the vessel was like a stream of fire; millions of particles of fire were disengaged by the ship’s swift motion through the water, nearly in the same way as by the electric cushion and cylinder; and all continued to be absorbed at a short distance from the vessel. Whether this phenomenon takes place in fresh water or in the Nile, I have had no opportunity of observing.

The deep to be hoary.] By the frost and foam raised by the rapid passage of the animal through the water.

Verses 31, 32. He maketh the deep — The deep waters; to boil like a pot — To swell, and foam, and froth, by his strong and vehement motion, as any liquor does when it is boiled in a pot, especially boiling ointment. The sea — Either the great sea, the proper place of the whale, Psalm 104:25, or the great river Nile, which is called a sea, both in Scripture, as Isaiah 11:15, and in other authors, as Euphrates is called the sea of Babylon, Isaiah 21:1; Jeremiah 51:36. Lakes also are most frequently called seas, both in the Old and New Testament; and in such lakes the crocodiles are, as well as in the Nile. He maketh a path to shine after him — Houbigant renders the text, He leaves behind him a shining path; that is, the way in which he moves appears shining and conspicuous, as when a ship sails, and leaves a visible path behind it, which in the night appears to shine. One would think the deep to be hoary — It is so covered with froth and foam that it looks as if it were grown old, and become hoary.

32. Hoary — This figure (comparing the foaming water to hair white with age) is one of great dignity, and is common in the classics. For instance, Homer (Iliad, 1:350) speaks of “the hoary sea,” and Moschus of “the hoary deep.” — Id., 5:5.

Verse 33. Upon earth there is not his like] There is no creature among terrestrial animals so thoroughly dangerous, so exceedingly strong, and so difficult to be wounded or slain.

Who is made without fear.] Perhaps there is no creature who is at all acquainted with man, so totally destitute of fear as the crocodile.

Verse 33. Upon the earth there is not his like — No creature in this world is comparable to him for strength and terror. Or the earth is here distinguished from the sea; for the Hebrew, wlvm rp[ l[ ˆya, een gnal gnapar mashelo, may be properly rendered, His dominion is not upon the earth; namely, but upon the waters. Houbigant renders it, His dwelling is not upon the dust; which, as he understands it of the crocodile, he supposes to express the amphibious nature of the animal, which, although it is observed every day at morning and evening to come out of the waters, and to continue awhile on the land, yet, properly speaking, is an inhabitant of the waters, and it is well for man that he is so; for if such a terrible creature were allowed to roam and ravage upon this earth, it would be an unsafe and uncomfortable habitation for the children of men, for whom it is intended. Who is made without fear — Fears no enemy, as being sensible of his own invincible strength. But tj ylbl, libli chath, may be rendered, so as he cannot be bruised, or broken; namely, because of his prodigious hardness, of which we have spoken before.

33. Upon earth there is not his like — Thus the Septuagint, Delitzsch, and Umbreit. The word wlvm, his like, may also signify “his ruler,” (Hitzig, Ewald, etc.,) and the sentence be read literally, There is not on the dust his ruler: among beasts and among men he has no king. The reason is obliquely given for the honour accorded the two monsters, of crowning the tableau held up from nature; the one is a firstling of God’s works; the other is one of nature’s monarchs, which acknowledges no superior.

V. 34. King, &c.-He can tame both the behemoth and leviathan, as strong and stout-hearted as they are. This discourse concerning them was brought in, to prove that it is God only, who can look upon proud men and abase them, bring them low, and hide them in the dust, he it is that beholdeth all high things, and wherein men dealt proudly, he is above them. He is king over all the children of pride, brutal or rational, and makes them either bend or break before him.

Verse 34. He is a king over all the children of pride.] There is no animal in the waters that does not fear and fly from him. Hence the Chaldee renders it, all the offspring of FISHES.

Calmet says, that by the children of pride the Egyptians are meant; that the crocodile is called their king, because he was one of their principal divinities; that the kings of Egypt were called Pharaoh, which signifies a crocodile; and that the Egyptians were proverbial for their pride, as may be seen in Ezekiel 32:12. And it is very natural to say that Job, wishing to point out a cruel animal, adored by the Egyptians, and considered by them as their chief divinity, should describe him under the name of king of all the children of pride.

Houbigant considers the לויתנ livyathan, the coupled dragon, to be emblematical of Satan: “He lifts his proud look to God, and aspires to the high heavens; and is king over all the sons of pride.” He is, in effect, the governor of every proud, haughty, impious man. What a king! What laws! What subjects!

Others think that MEN are intended by the sons of pride; and that it is with the design to abate their pride, and confound them in the high notions they have of their own importance, that God produces and describes an animal of whom they are all afraid, and whom none of them can conquer. AFTER all, what is leviathan? I have strong doubts whether either whale or crocodile be meant. I think even the crocodile overrated by this description. He is too great, too powerful, too important, in this representation. No beast, terrestrial or aquatic, deserves the high character here given, though that character only considers him as unconquerably strong, ferociously cruel, and wonderfully made. Perhaps leviathan was some extinct mammoth of the waters, as behemoth was of the land. However, I have followed the general opinion by treating him as the crocodile throughout these notes; but could not finish without stating my doubts on the subject, though I have nothing better to offer in the place of the animal in behalf of which almost all learned men and critics argue, and concerning which they generally agree. As to its being an emblem either of Pharaoh or the devil, I can say little more than, I doubt. The description is extremely dignified; and were we sure of the animal, I have no doubt we should find it in every instance correct. But after all that has been said, we have yet to learn what leviathan is!

JOB

Verse 34. He beholdeth all high things — He looks about him with contempt and disdain on every thing he sees. He does not turn his back upon, or hide his face from, the highest and mightiest creatures, but beholds them with a bold and undaunted countenance, as being without any fear of them. He is king over all the children of pride — He carries himself with princely majesty and courage toward the strongest, loftiest, and fiercest creatures, which, though far higher in stature than himself, he strikes down with one stroke of his tail, as he commonly does cows and horses, and sometimes elephants. Heath’s translation of this verse seems peculiarly proper, as referring to, and closing the description of, the crocodile: He will look upon any thing with contempt, be it ever so high: he is king over all the sons of rapine; that is, over the most ravenous beasts, according to the Syriac and Arabic. Dr. Young’s paraphrase on these last two verses will please the reader, and give him a juster idea of their contents, than any thing we have said upon them:

“His like earth bears not on her spacious face;

Alone in nature stands his dauntless race,

For utter ignorance of fear renown’d;

In wrath he rolls his baleful eyes around;

Makes every swoll’n, disdainful heart subside,

And holds dominion o’er the sons of pride.”

Here end the words of God to Job, whereby he sets forth his wisdom and power, in the works of the creation: from whence Job might be led to infer, that the wisdom and power of God being so immense, men ought to speak most reverently of him, and think most humbly and lowly of themselves; persuaded that, though we cannot always see the reason why the divine providence suffers certain things to come to pass, yet we ought to rest assured that they are wisely, and therefore justly, ordered, and therefore we should resignedly submit our selves to the divine will in all things.

34. He beholdeth all high things — Without fear he looks in the face of man, the monarch, here standing in contradistinction to the king of beasts, in the second clause. Comp. Job 40:11, 12. Children of pride — Rendered “the lion’s whelps,” in Job 28:8. It is here used of the most formidable of beasts, with their characteristically majestic and haughty step. Aben Ezra, however, remarks that xjv ynb “is a comprehensive expression, including whatsoever hath its birth in the waters.” That pride should be the last word of this wonderful description is worthy of note; and may help somewhat to solve the mystery of the divine address. The figure with which it closes is a startling one — that of the most fearful of all reptiles — their king, and, as the ancients thought, the embodiment of evil — staring not only at all that is high, but at poor, humbled Job. His pride — if such were his infirmity — is now all broken, and the work of discipline is complete.

EXCURSUS No. VIII.

BEHEMOTH AND LEVIATHAN.

The word behemoth, in its Hebrew aspect, is generally assumed to be the plural form of behemah, “beast,” from baham, “to be mute,” (see note on 12:7,) and by some it is supposed to be used collectively for beasts in general, as in the Septuagint, (qhria,) and in the Chaldee, (ayry[b;) the Syriac and Vulgate, like ourselves, meanwhile retaining the Hebrew word. On the assumption of such a derivation of the word, it may be regarded as “a plural of excellency,” a not uncommon form in the Hebrew for the superlative qualities of an object. The scholarship of the day, however, inclines to the view that this word behemoth, though it bears a Hebrew form, is an importation into that language from Egypt, (thus Dillmann and Hitzig;) its resemblance to the Coptic pehemaut, water ox, (p, the; ehe, ox; mau, water,) having been noted by the best biblical scholars from the times of Jablonski to the present: for instance, Gesenius, Winer, Furst, Delitzsch, etc. In the hieroglyphs, the Nile-horse or ox (hippopotamus) was called apet or rert, the meaning of which was, according to Brugsch, “that which rolls or turns itself in the mud or water; that is, a beast that rolls in the mud.” — Hieroglyph. Demot. Worterbuch, p. 867. The hieroglyphic representation of the hippopotamus as given by Canon Cook, and on page 262 of this work, is taken from the description of a fishing party in the times of the seventeenth or eighteenth dynasty, a period earlier than that of Moses, and is read by Birch, who follows Champollion, bechama, the resemblance of which to the word before us, behemoth, is unmistakable. It is proper to remark, however, that Brugsch transcribes it cheb. The etymology, then, of the word behemoth, as seen through the more recent philological discoveries, points to the hippopotamus, and makes quite unnecessary any enlarged reference to the various speculations indulged in by various interpreters of behemoth. Drusius, Grotius, Schultens, J.D. Michaelis, Scott, Henry, P.H. Gosse, (Fairbairn’s Bib. Dic.,) suppose that the elephant is meant by behemoth; others, again, (as Professors Lee, Rosenmuller, W.F. Ainsworth, in Journal of Sacred Literature, 1859, p. 44,) regard the word as collective, and standing for beasts in general, while Dr. Good and a few others think that behemoth answers to some extinct pachyderm of the mammoth or mastodon species. On the supposition that no living species of the hippopotamus, as respects bulk, shape, or disposition, fills all the demands of this detailed description given in Job, it is not improbable that all the conditions may have been fulfilled by some one of the various species of the same animal living at the same time as Job. Six species of the hippopotamus have been found in the fossil state, and even in England one species has been discovered as much larger than his living congener as its companion, the mammoth, was larger than the living elephant. See Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, s.v. Rabbinical writers in the Talmud depicted this animal — supposed by them also to be alluded to in Psalm 50:10 — as a monster, every day devouring “the grass of a thousand hills,” destined himself in turn to furnish a feast for God’s people when the Messiah shall come. According to the legend, behemoth was created male and female; but the latter was destroyed, lest the earth should be unable to sustain their progeny, while the male is doomed to live on until all the faithful Israelites shall have been raised from the dead, at which time he himself shall be slaughtered. (See Kitto, Bib. Illus., in loc. Allen, Modern Judaism, p. 271. Samuel Wesley, Dissertationes, pp. 295-297.)

The word leviathan (Hebrew, livyathan) occurs five times in the Scriptures: Job 3:8; 41:1; Psalm 74:14; 104:26; Isaiah 27:1; and, with the exception of Job 3:8, is uniformly rendered leviathan. The term livyathan is from lavah, to “writhe,” “wind,” “twist;” a like meaning to which the cognate word in the Arabic and Syriac also bears. See on Job 41:1. The term, then, may be used in a by no means restricted sense, but one wide enough to embrace some unknown monster of the deep. Psalm 104:26. In Isaiah 27, verse 1, the word appears twice, first as the synonyme of “the piercing serpent,” nahhash bariahh, the “fleeing” or “fleet serpent,” from barahh “to flee,” (same as in Job 26:13; see note,) and secondly, as equivalent to “the crooked serpent,” nahhash ‘hakallathon, from ‘hakal, “to twist,” “wind,” or “coil,” in allusion to the sinuosities into which serpents form themselves in order that rapid motion may be effected. Such an association of the term leviathan evidently indicates a wide use of the word for any great monster, whether of the ocean, (Psalm 104:26,) the air, (Job 26:13,) or the land. There can be but little doubt that here, and in Job 3:8, (on which see extended note,) as well as in Psalm 74:14, leviathan answers to the ancient crocodile. The number of names given to the crocodile in very ancient times points to a great variety of species, and “crocodiles which differ from all living species have also actually been found in Egyptian tombs.” — Schmarda, cited by Delitzsch, ii, p. 366.

Among the many considerations that might be urged, that in neither case has the modern critic erred in his designation of behemoth and leviathan, is the interesting fact that the hippopotamus and crocodile appear together as typical monsters in the most ancient times; perhaps, because they were found together in the Nile, and also because of the profound impression which both of those monstrosities made upon that intelligent but most superstitious people, the Egyptians. Bochartus furnishes a formidable array of authorities and gives copious citations in illustration of this strange association of the two by the ancients. Among those who thus speak of behemoth and leviathan are Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, Solinus, Philo, Pausanias, Marcellinus, etc. Clemens, according to Wilkinson, (v, p. 180,) substitutes the crocodile for the hippopotamus in the sentence which he cites from a temple at Dispolis. Bunsen (Egypt’s Place, etc., 1:516) gives a hieroglyph in which the two are conjoined. According to Jewish traditions, a fierce battle is yet to be waged between behemoth and leviathan, in which neither shall be victorious; but when both shall fall exhausted, they shall be stabbed and slain by Messiah. (Allen, Modern Judaism, 270.)

An exceedingly difficult question, forced upon the commentator, is that of determining the significance of these two animals, of which the sacred writer gives so long and detailed a description. The cursory notes already given have glanced at some of the greatly diversified views held by ancient and modern writers. That these beasts are introduced into the address of Jehovah for the purpose of inculcating upon Job some deep ethical lesson is admitted by all those who do not, like Ewald, Simson, Furst, and Dillmann, go to the extreme of excluding the behemoth-leviathan section from the word of God. Delitzsch thinks that “these two descriptions are designed to teach Job how little capable of passing sentence upon the evil doer he is who cannot even draw a cord through the nose of the behemoth, and who, if he once attempted to attack the leviathan, would have reason to remember it so long as he lived, and would henceforth let him alone. It is, perhaps, an emblem that is not without connexion with the book of Job, that these, behemoth and livyathan, (tannin,) in the language of the prophets and the psalms are the symbols of a worldly power at enmity with the God of redemption and his people.”… “To show Job how little capable he is of governing the world, and how little he would be in a position to execute judgment on the evil doer, two creatures are described to him — two unslain monsters of gigantic structure and invincible strength, which defy all human attack.” Vol. ii, p. 384. Zockler, (in Lange,) whom Zschokke follows, regards them as “awe-inspiring examples for us; symbols, as it were, or pictorial embodiments, of the divine wrath.” He says, “After the repeated intimations which the passage itself conveys — especially in Job 40:19; 41:10, 11, 22, 25 — concerning the presumptuous pride and the tyrannical ferocity of the two animals described, it is scarcely to be doubted that, according to the clearly defined and finally maintained purpose of the poet, these are to be regarded as symbols not merely of the power, but also of the justice, of God; or in other words, that the divine attribute of which the poet desires to present them as the vivid living mirror and manifesting medium, is omnipotence in the closest union with justice, (more particularly with punitive justice or wrath,) or omnipotence in its judicial manifestations.”

The Fathers of the Church, for instance, Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, Cyril, Gregory the Great, Jerome, (Comment. on Job,) Olympiodorus, attached to leviathan a mystical sense, and conceived him to symbolize the Satan who appeared so prominently in the prologue of the book. The theory has been most unequivocally endorsed by Bishop Wordsworth, who approvingly cites Samuel Wesley, the latter of whom regarded leviathan “as an adumbration of the king of evil spirits;” and saw in him “a picture of the tyrannical oppressors of God’s people, who are types and instruments of Satan;” and deemed that “something greater and more terrible than a crocodile, and than any dragon of the earth or sea, or than Pharaoh himself, lies concealed in the words of Jehovah under the figure of leviathan.” — Dissertationes in Librum Jobi, xxxviii, pp. 299-301. What makes the theory more impressive and worthy of consideration is, that the very word behemah, beast, appears again and again in the Scriptures as an unindividualized symbol of godless men. Psalm 49:12-20; 73:22; Jeremiah 5:8; comp. Psalm 68:30, (margin,) etc. The Scriptures, too, intimately associate Satan with the “serpent,” (Genesis 3:1; 2 Corinthians 11:3,) the “dragon,” (Revelation 13:2,) the “old serpent,” (Revelation 12:9; 20:2;) in all which, we may remark, that it is the reptile or saurian creation which the spirit of evil has chosen through whom to work ruin to our race. But this theory, on the one hand, does not account for the associated prominence accorded to behemoth, (not to speak of the pacific disposition ascribed to him,) and on the other, attributes to Satanic leviathan a dominion, embracing the brute creation, which is quite too universal (Job 41:26) to comport with other representations of Scripture. Wordsworth vainly tries to account for the two in their conjoined capacity of Satanic medium, by the constrained view that “behemoth represents the evil one acting in the animal and carnal elements of man’s own constitution, and that leviathan, symbolizes the evil one energizing as his external enemy. Behemoth is the enemy within us, leviathan is the enemy without us.”

It may help, in deciphering the hidden meaning of these two animals, to look a little more closely at the marks by which they are distinguished from the brute world which had previously passed in array before us. As before remarked, they are both amphibious, — representatives of two modes of life — which, because of its comprehensiveness gives them a greater claim upon our attention. Belonging, one of them to the class pachydermata, and the other to that of saurians, they, quite as much as any of the surviving creation, are linked with pre-adamite monsters — and possibly with a regime of evil which is supposed by some to have preceded the period when the world came distinctly under our own recorded spiritual economy, connected with the garden of Eden. (See Kurtz’s Bible and Astronomy, section 18.) Both of them, consequently, belong to that portion of God’s creation which may be characterized as abnormal, grotesque, and monstrous. What is of greater significance yet, is, that they both figured most conspicuously in the mythologies and symbols of the ancient world. “The hippopotamus was said to have been a symbol of the western pole, or the region of darkness: distinct, of course, from that primeval darkness which covered the deep, and from which sprang the light supposed to have been seen by the Mygale, the emblem of Buto.” — WILKINSON’S Ancient Egyptians, 5:181. For this reason, it may have been, that in astronomical representations the hippopotamus was assigned to the neighbourhood of the north pole, a place now filled by the dragon. Eusebius informs us, (Praep. Evang. iii, chap. 12,) that the hippopotamus was seen figured in this view in the temple of Apollinopolis, standing with open jaws and gaping upwards as if to engulf the descending lights of heaven. Wilkinson (Anc. Eg., 5:87, 88) refers to a well-known god with the head of a hippopotamus, who, he says, “may be one of the characters of the Egyptian Mars, the animal itself being worshipped at Papremis, the city of that deity. I have only found him so represented in small pottery figures, but never in the sculptures, though the hippopotamus-headed goddess occurs in monuments of an early date. The connexion of the god Mars and this Typhonian animal is remarkable.” — Compare Herodotus, 2:59-71. Plutarch, speaking of the symbolic figures to be seen in the porch of the temple of Minerva at Sais, introduces, last of all, the sea-horse [hippopotamus] as the symbol of impudence. The meaning of the entire series of symbols, he says, is this: “O you who are coming into the world, and who are going out of it, (that is, both young and old,) God hateth impudence.” — De Iside, sec. 32. Horapollo (i, 56) assigns to the claws of the hippopotamus the signification of “injustice and ingratitude,” as well as to the whole animal the force of “time,” or “an hour.” What is of greater consideration, even yet, is the relation which the hippopotamus sustained to the soul in the infernal regions — the Kerneter or Amenti — “the place of the gods.” (Concerning Amenthes or Amenti, see p. 74, and Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place in History, 1:433.) If, after the deceased had been judged by Osiris and his forty-two deputies he was convicted of unpardonable faults, he became the prey of an infernal monster with the head of a hippopotamus. This monster was the goddess Thoueris — devourer of souls. See further, Lenormant, Chald. Mag., p. 86. Also note 31:6. The significance of the discovery made by Schliemann at Hissarlik (which he supposes to have been ancient Troy) does not yet appear. “It is that of a brilliant red terra-cotta hippopotamus, at a depth of twenty-three feet. It is still an enigma how the animal was so well known here as to have been made of clay in a form quite faithful to nature.” — Troy and its Remains, p. 228. On the wide diffusion of the hippopotamus in ancient times, see Meth. Quar. Revelation, 1877, p. 248; also, Murray’s Geog. Dist. of An., p. 165.

Not unlike the hippopotamus, a crocodile couching was, says Horapollo, a symbol of the west, and the tail of the crocodile was the hieroglyphic character which expressed darkness in the sacred sculpture of the Egyptians. On the contrary, “the crocodile was supposed by some to be an emblem of the sun, its number, sixty, being thought to agree with that luminary; and Clemens tells us, (Strom., lib. v,) the sun was sometimes in a boat, and at others on a crocodile.” — WILKINSON, Ibid., 5:233. The crocodile was peculiarly sacred to the god Sevek. Its worship did not extend to every part of Egypt: some places, considering it the representative of the evil being, bore the most deadly enmity to it, which led to serious feuds between neighbouring towns. — Ibid., 5:229. “Nor, indeed,” says Plutarch, “has the crocodile itself those great honours paid it, without some probable show of reason for so doing. For, as this animal has no tongue, [see note, p. 267,] it has, on that account, been esteemed as the image, as it were, of the deity himself. For the divine reason stands not in need of speech, but,

Marching through still and silent paths,

The world administers with justice.

It is observed, likewise, as another property of this animal, that though, while it is in the water, its eyes are covered by a thin, pellucid membrane, which comes down from its forehead, yet it is able to see when it cannot be perceived that it sees, so that in this respect, likewise, it bears some resemblance to the first God. It is further remarked, that in whatever part of the country the female crocodile lays her eggs, so far will be the extent of the rise of the Nile for that season.” — De Iside, etc., sec. 75. The crocodile also figured among the terrors which the Egyptian fancied the soul to encounter in its journeyings and transmigrations after the close of life. Chapter 32 of the Ritual of the Dead describes the departed as turning back four crocodiles, each one of which came from a different cardinal point.

The most important characteristic of these two animals, (behemoth and leviathan,) and one for which the preceding citations have prepared us, is, that they were typhonian — a word which Luke uses (Acts 27:14) in describing the Euroclydon, when he calls it tufonikov, a typhonic, “tempestuous” wind. In explanation of the word, Plutarch remarks: “Every thing that is of an evil and malignant nature, either in the animal, vegetable, or intellectual world, is looked upon in general as the operation of Typhon, as part of him, or as the effect of his influence.” See De Iside, 49. “Furthermore,” says Plutarch. abruptly, “in the city of Apollo it is an established custom that every one must eat of a crocodile.” Modern travellers (Denon, 1. 16) speak of Egyptian temples (at Ombos) in which the paintings mostly related to the worship of the crocodile. The god, in one of the temples, bore in part the form of a man, only that it was surmounted by the crocodile’s head. The name given to this deity was Sevek.

It was a very generally embraced belief among the Egyptians that it was by taking on himself the form of a crocodile that Typhon escaped from Horus, the avenger of the murder of Osiris, his father. In an invocation of Horus we find the following: “Come to me quickly on this day to guide the holy bark, (the sun’s boat,) to force back… all crocodiles into the Nile. Shamelessness and sin (?) come and appear upon earth; but when Horus is invoked he destroys them. All mankind rejoice when they see the sun. They praise the son of Osiris, and the serpent turns back.” (From Brugsch, cited by Duncker, History of Antiq., 1:60.) The hieroglyph of Sevek was, according to Birch, a crocodile seated on a pylon. In this and other tropic hieroglyphics, “it appears from the ritual that there undoubtedly was an inward or esoteric meaning.” — Hieroglyphics, p. 221. (On its typhonian character see note, 3:8.) In India, on each day of the great and horrible festival of Siva, the devotees worship the sun, pouring waters and flowers on a clay image of the alligator. (Ward, History, etc., of the Hindus, 1:26.) In South Africa, “if the Bakwains happened to go near to an alligator they would spit on the ground, and indicate its presence by saying, ‘There is sin.’” — Livingstone.

The Egyptian mythology selected animals of hideous aspect, or of fierce and untamable disposition, or “the most senseless and stupid, such as the ass,” (Plutarch,) to stand as embodiments, or more properly as living representatives, of Typhon. The statement, however, which Bunsen makes (Egypt, etc., 1:442) is not to be overlooked, and is to be accounted at its proper worth, that prior to the time of Rameses and his successor, about 1300 B.C., “Typhon is one of the most venerated and powerful gods; a god which pours blessings and life on the rulers of Egypt, just as the hateful Nephthys is called ‘the benevolent, protecting sister.’” Unquestionably, at the head of typhonian animals stand the two, with a protracted description of which the address of the Almighty closes. They pre-eminently represent, according to Plutarch, “the wilder kind, the most fierce and untamable,” and are consequently devoted to Set or Typhon. (Compare Bunsen’s Egypt, 1:425-430.) At Hermopolis there is shown a statue of Typhon which represents a hippopotamus, on the back of which stands a hawk, (the sacred bird of Horus,) fighting with a serpent. (Plutarch, ibid.) Typhon usually appears on the monuments as a hippopotamus walking on its hind legs, and with female breasts; sometimes, with sword in hand, to show his evil nature. Sharpe, Egypt. Mythol., p. 8. On the seventh of the month Tybi, when the Egyptians celebrated the arrival of Isis from Phoenicia, they made cakes stamped with the form of a river-horse, bound. (Plutarch, ibid.) Mr. Birch has found, in the Book of the Dead, the word BABA, signifying the beast, (behemah.) as an epithet of Typhon. As we have before seen, Cheb or Chab was, according to Brugsch, the hieroglyph for hippopotamus. The word, he says, literally signifies “the concealed,” “the crooked.” In the form of Chebu, it bears the meaning of “morally crooked, distorted; hence, sin, error, badness.” In illustration, he cites from the Book of the Dead, “nen ar-a Chebu em ma-t.” “I have not committed iniquities in the tribunal of truth, (justice,) in sede veritatis: (justitiae.)” — Hieroglyph. Demot. Worterbuch, pp. 1030, 1031.

These varied, numerous, and necessarily abbreviated illustrations of the Egyptian view of embodied evil have been adduced, not with the supposition that specifically, or in detail, they were, or could be, known to Job, but simply to set before the reader in general the significance of behemoth and leviathan in ancient mythology, a significance of which Job — who in his great lamentation (Job 3:8) naturally alludes to leviathan and the sorcerers, and who was profoundly versed in Egyptian matters, (see Excursus IX,) — could not by any means have been ignorant. These two brutes, then, stood as types of evil; and one great lesson they taught Job may have been intimately connected with the subject of evil. These types of evil Job is called upon to comprehend and explain. That they belonged to the brute world would make the rebuke to Job more signal and humiliating. The rebuke assumes that the knowledge of that which is greater, should imply knowledge of that which is less. He who understands evil in its infinite relations to God, ought to understand it in its finite relations to earth. To illustrate by modern science: He who professes to unfold the cause of the magnetism of the interior of the earth should not stickle at the currents that play upon its surface. Job had pre-sumptuously challenged God to give account of his ways, (Job 13:20-28;) had defiantly charged upon him, that he had afflicted his servant beyond what was right, (Job 9:13-22;) in his murmurs and complaints had postulated a comprehensive knowledge of the unseen world of evil, (Job 16:9-14:) if he be so wise with respect to the spiritual and unseen — the vast, throbbing currents of right and wrong which underlie the infinite moral world over which God rules and reigns, he must know all about evil in all its disclosures through the brute creation! “Behold behemoth!” Explain these typhonian creatures which live on the outskirts of the wide-extended sphere of hidden evil, (Job 40:20-22;) then Job may show reason for discoursing upon subjects which tower almost infinitely above every human understanding.

On account of greatly magnified difficulties which are supposed by some to adhere to the behemoth section, it has been regarded by De Wette, Ewald, and Stuhlmann as an interpolation, and attributed by them to the so-called “author of the Elihu section,” (on which see page 197,) and, to one’s surprise, assumed by Dillmann even, to be an addition from some “inferior Egyptian poet who undertook to describe monsters he had seen in his native land.” Ewald bases his objections to the section before us on the twofold ground of position, and of the different character existing between the description of these two and the earlier description of animals — chapters 38 and 39. The first objection assumes that the sole object of this long delineation of the two animals is to set forth the power of God, and, therefore, should be connected with the first address, which had the same end in view, instead of being connected with the second address, which, it is also assumed, exclusively treats of the justice of God. Hirtzel replies that “the same objection holds against the challenge of God, (Job 40:9-14,) because it refers as little to the justice of God, but really is a question of power between Job and his Creator.” A consistent work of excision would then leave but two verses, (seven and eight,) for the second address of the Almighty. The stately tree which came forth from the divine hand in symmetrical proportion stands peeled and stripped, with a single, solitary, scragged bough. As to the second objection, it may be sufficient to indicate that a more close examination of the section shows the same artistic hand as in the earlier portions of the book. This may be tested by the comparison of unusual expressions and forms of Hebrew words, which it has in common with Job and his friends: for instance, “eyelids of the morning,” Job 41:18 with Job 3:9: “children of pride,” Job 41:34 with Job 28:8; the personification in Job 41:22 with Job 17:2 and Job 29:19, literally, the dew lodged (passed the night) in every branch; branches of the body, for limbs, (Hebrew, baddim,) Job 41:12 with Job 18:13; the peculiar use of karah, to traffic, with l[, in Job 41:6 and Job 6:27; the Jobesque use of rp[ l[, “upon the dust,” Job 41:33 and Job 19:25, (on which, see note;) the exceptional employment of µyqypa, with the meaning of “strong,” Job 41:15 and Job 12:21, (in each case see margin;) also of dpr, to “spread,” Job 41:30 and Job 17:13; the form wc[h, Job 41:33, and wpx, Job 15:22, etc.

The theory above adduced, that the two animals stand as types of evil, meets objections raised against their long-drawn-out portraiture. From such a stand-point the space they fill in the work does not appear unseemly, even when compared with that accorded to animals not typhonic. Moreover, this theory brings forward into bold relief the subject of evil, which otherwise would not receive direct consideration in these discourses of Jehovah. Besides, if such a moral interpretation be not justifiable, it is to be specially remarked that a work which in other respects is perfect in its artistic and dramatic make, at the outset brought out into great prominence the emissary of evil only to thrust him, and the cause he so maliciously represented, entirely from the scene, unless, perchance, we are justified in fastening upon him oblique allusions to fiends who may have been human. (See notes on Job 16:9, 10, 11.) Since the chief objection to the behemoth section is artistic, it will suffice to offset it with the unquestionably unprejudiced view of Renan, (page 1,) who says, “We should guard ourselves from a desire to find in these ancient works our principles of composition and taste. The style of the fragment of which we speak (Job 40:15-41:34) is that of the better portions of the poem. Nowhere is the style (la coup) more vigorous, the parallelism more sonorous; all indicates that this singular morceau is from the same hand, but not from the same jet, as the rest of the discourse of Jehovah.” EXCURSUS No. IX.

JOB, EDOM, EGYPT, AND CHALDAEA.

In the necessarily brief note on the land of Uz, (page 13,) we were led to adopt the ancient view, that the home of Job was in Edom, (Idumaea,) a country no less interesting from its associations with the tribe of Esau than from the rugged grandeur of its mountain scenery, with its rock city Petra, (Hebrew, Selah,) the tombs, temples, theatres, and even private dwellings of which, were cut in “the clefts of the rock.” — Obadiah 1:3. These remain to the present day, a naked, solitary monument, as everlasting as the mountains themselves, to the truthfulness of the word of God. Isaiah 34:6-15; Jeremiah 49:7-17; Ezekiel 25:13; 35:3-9; Obadiah 1:3, 4; and Malachi 1:3, 4. This land first appears in history as mount Seir, the home of the Horites. (Genesis 14:6.) In the course of time the Horites were overpowered by “the children of Esau,” (Deuteronomy 2:12,) whereupon the country took also the name of Edom, (redness,) a name it afterward bore in the Scriptures. The Greeks called the same country ‘Idoumaia, (Idumaea;) which Josephus regarded as “a softer and more elegant pronunciation” of what should be more properly written Adwma, (Adoma.) The length of Edom proper was about one hundred miles, and its breadth about twenty miles, on an average. For the most part it consisted of mountain ranges, not far from two thousand feet above the sea, though not without extended valleys and plateaus of arable land, which in ancient times unquestionably furnished a richness of soil answering to “the fatness of the earth” which Isaac, in prophetic vision, promised his wayward and disappointed son. (Genesis 27:39.) Even of the present condition of this mountainous country Dean Stanley writes: “The first thing that struck me in turning out of the ‘Arabah up the defiles that lead to Petra was, that we had suddenly left the desert. Instead of the absolute nakedness of the Sinaitic valleys, we found ourselves walking on grass, sprinkled with flowers, and the level platforms on each side were filled with sprouting corn; and this continues through the whole descent to Petra, and in Petra itself. The next peculiarity was, when, after having left the summit of the pass, or after descending from mount Hor, we found ourselves insensibly encircled with rocks of deepening and deepening red. Red, indeed, even from a distance, the mountains of ‘red’ Edom appear, but not more so than the granite of Sinai; and it is not till one is actually in the midst of them that this red becomes crimson, and that the wonder of the Petra colors fully displays itself” — Sinai and Palestine p. 88. The approach to Petra, even from a distance, deeply impresses the traveller. “We wound,” says Laborde, “round a peak surmounted by a single tree. The view from that point exhibited a vast, frightful desert — a chaotic sea, the waves of which were petrified. Following the beaten path, we saw before us mount Hor, crowned by the tomb of the prophet, if we are to credit the ancient traditions preserved by the people of that country… But at length the road leads the traveller to the heights above one more ravine, whence he discovers within his horizon the most singular spectacle, the most enchanting picture, which nature has wrought in her grandest mood of creation.” — Arabia Petraea, p. 154.

“You descend from wide downs,… and before you opens a deep cleft between rocks of red sandstone rising perpendicularly to the height of one, two, three hundred feet. This is the sik or ‘cleft;’ through this flows — if one may use the expression — the dry torrent, which, rising in the mountains half an hour hence, gives the name by which alone Petra is now known among the Arabs, wady Mousa, [valley of Moses.]… Follow me, then, down this

magnificent gorge — the most magnificent, beyond all doubt, which I have ever beheld. The rocks are almost precipitous… The gorge is about a mile and a half long, and the opening of the cliffs at the top is throughout almost as narrow as the narrowest part of the defile of Pfeffers.” — STANLEY, Sinai and Palestine, p. 89. For the spectacle which rises before the vision at the end of the long defile we refer the reader to the works of Robinson, Olin, Laborde, and Stanley. It does not lie within our province to treat of the eventful history of the strange people who inhabited these mountainous heights. After filling an important page in the history of the world, at about the Christian era, not only the nation, but even the name of the country itself, Idumaea, quite disappeared from the knowledge of men.

The readiest route for the long lines of caravans, laden with merchandise, which in ancient times travelled from the Persian Gulf to Egypt, and thence probably to Ethiopia, lay along the boundaries of Idumaea, so that in the course of time Petra became an entre-pot of great importance. (See Strabo, xvi, ch. 4:24.) Communication with the seaports of Phoenicia on the one hand was no more difficult in ancient times than now; while, on the other hand, the desert lying between Idumaea and Chaldaea was traversed at the time when Job lived no less easily than at the present. (See note, Job 1:17.) If the commonly accepted view, that the home of Job was in the land of Edom, be the correct one, we have the key to the great knowledge Job possessed of the outer world, even though he may have lived in patriarchal times, seventeen or eighteen centuries before Christ. Recent discoveries show that long before the centuries mentioned a high civilization had been attained in Chaldaea as well as in Egypt, and that thus early discoveries had been made in the sciences and the arts corresponding to the great knowledge displayed in the book of Job. “There is no reason,” says Layard, “why we should not assign to Assyria the same remote antiquity we claim for Egypt. The monuments of Egypt prove that she did not stand alone in civilization and power. At the earliest period we find her contending with enemies already nearly, if not fully, as powerful as herself; and amongst the spoil from Asia, and the articles of tribute brought by subdued nations from the northeast, are vases as elegant in shape, stuffs as rich in texture, and chariots as well adapted to war, as her own. It is not improbable that she herself [Egypt] was indebted to the nations of Western Asia for the introduction of arts in which they excelled, and that many things in common use were brought from the banks of the Tigris.” See further, his Nineveh, 2:225-235; and George Smith’s Chaldaean Account, pp. 28-31, 312.

The language of Accad, the dead language of primitive Chaldaea, together with its institutions and civilization, served as a fountain-head of knowledge to a large portion of the very ancient world. The Phoenician never forgot that his ancestors once dwelt along the Persian Gulf, and even the Israelite traced his ancestral home to Ur of the Chaldees. (See Kenrick’s Phoenicia, pp. 48, 52.) “These Accadians were the earliest civilizers of Western Asia, and it is to them that we have to trace the arts and sciences, the religious traditions and the philosophy, not only of the Assyrians, but also of the Phoenicians, the Aramaeans, and even the Hebrews themselves. It was, too, from Chaldaea that the gems of Greek art and of much of the Greek pantheon and mythology originally came. Columnar architecture reached its first and highest development in Babylonia… It is difficult to say how much of our present culture is not owed to the stunted, oblique-eyed people of ancient Babylonia… Both Jerusalem and Athens were profoundly influenced by the ideas which had their first starting point in primeval Accad.” — SAYCE, Babylonian Literature, p. 6-14.

On the other hand, not many days’ journey from Petra lay the land of Canaan, (Phoenicia,) with its maritime cities, one of which, Zidon, was mentioned by Jacob in his dying addresses as “a haven for ships.” Genesis 49:13; compare Joshua 19:28, 29. As we have already seen, (note on 41:6,) at the time of Homer the Phoenicians were the merchants of the world. Their commercial activity took its rise with that of the people themselves. No sooner had they “settled in the parts which they now inhabit.” than they “began at once,” says Herodotus, (i, 1,) “to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria.” Not to speak of the ancient terminus of caravan lines at Gerrha, on the Persian Gulf, with its communications with India, Phoenicia itself would by its seaports open many outlooks through which Job might take a glimpse of the sea and the wonders of distant lands. Through the Canaanites Job may have obtained his varied knowledge of metallurgy, even if he had no information of the extensive mines in Arabia, and especially those of the land of Midian, the extent of which the recent exploration of Captain Burton (1878) serves to make known. Burton describes the country as the land of ruined mines, with shafts, tunnels, furnaces, workmen’s towns and princely cities, now the very picture of desolation. Comp. Numbers 31:1, 22, 23. On this section see Heeren, Asiatic Researches, 1:325-368, 2:300-303; Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, 1:551-563, 3:14-16, sec. ed.; Kenrick, Phoenicia, chap. vi; Records of the Past, vol. 8.

To the south of Idumaea, within a few days’ journey, lay the wondrous land of Egypt, with its solemn temples, its pyramids, its tombs, and its repositories of religious knowledge. The monuments both in Egypt and Chaldaea bear witness to a wide-extended communication between the peoples of the ancient world. An inscription at Karnak shows that in the sixteenth century before Christ, Tuthmosis III. received tribute from Syria in a coin of such a make, and in such sums, as to justify the conclusion that both the Babylonian money weight and the imperial Babylonian weight were at that time in use in Syria. See further, Duncker, History of Antiquity, 1:304. Compare Joshua 7:21. There can be but little question that the commerce between Egypt and Chaldaea before alluded to reached as far back as two thousand years B.C., and that Arab merchants carried the products of South Arabia — the spices of Yemen as well as the products and manufactures of India, especially their silks — to Babylon, and that thence a similar commerce was maintained with Egypt. Duncker, ibid, 1:226, 305, 317-323.

It is not without deep significance that Job makes appeal to “wayfaring men” in confirmation of the advanced position he was taking against “the friends.” (See note, Job 21:29.) For, notwithstanding its abominable distortions, religious light was disseminated far and wide. This is indicated by the strikingly similar features of ancient idolatry, of which the worship of the bull may stand as a type, whether you speak of the Mnevis or Apis of Egypt, the winged bull of Assyria, the bull Nandi of the Hindu, or even the bull of Japan, with his horn breaking the mundane egg. A similar worship of the sun prevailed throughout the ancient world — in Egypt under the form of Ra, (some say Osiris;) in Phoenicia, of Baal; in Arabia and Assyria, of Shams, or Shamas; among the Persians, of Mithras; in India, of Surya, or Mitra; and by the wandering Celt, of Beal or Bealam — an almost universal worship, with which Job declared himself untainted. (Note Job 31:26, 27.) In like manner Lenormant remarks that the Babylonian religion, adopted by the Assyrians with only one important modification, was, in its essential principles, and in the spirit which guided its ideas, a religion of the same kind as that of Egypt, and of nearly all other great heathen religions. See further, his Chaldaean Magic, pp. 111, 112.

The distance from Egypt was not so great but that it may have been as easily visited by Job as by Abraham, Thales, Pythagoras, Herodotus, and Plato. (Comp. Diodorus Siculus, i, chap. 7.) The free and natural use of figures based upon Egypt, its scenery, vegetation, customs, works, and its animal kingdom, must have arrested the attention of even the cursory reader of this book. For more easy reference, we group together the more important of these allusions. Such are leviathan with his sorcerers, (Job 3:8;) the building of mausolea or pyramidal structures for the burial of the mighty dead, (Job 3:13-15;) the mention of the Nile, (which Job calls a sea, as it was called in Egypt,) with its watchers, its rank mire-growths, (Job 7:12; 8:11;) the employment of Egyptian words, yeor, (aur,) for streams, a name also used for the Nile, (Job 28:10;) with which agrees the cuneiform yaruhu for the same river. We have also the Egyptian ahhou, “flag,” which occurs in a papyrus of early date, and is kindred with akh-akh, “green,” “verdant;” as well as gome for papyrus, which word Brugsch identifies with the Coptic, (Job 8:11;) and an allusion to the papyrus boats of the Nile, which corresponds with the view of Brugsch, that the papyrus was specially employed in Egypt for making light, swift boats, (Job 9:26.) Such also are the unmistakable references to Egyptian judicial customs, among which is the requiring of the accuser to present his accusation in writing, and of the accused to sign his reply, (Job 31:35;) the enlarged description of the war horse, as well as of several wild animals indigenous to Egypt, among which the hippopotamus and crocodile fill the most important place. (Job 39:19-25; 40:15-24; 41.)

Along the banks of the Nile the light of a primeval revelation shone with greater clearness and effulgence, we are disposed to think, than in any other part of the ancient heathen world. What has been said of Hindostan, that “one could almost imagine that before God planted Christianity upon earth he took a branch from the luxuriant tree and threw it down to India,” would hold equally true of ancient Egypt. The increasing discoveries of our age have called great attention to this ancient land, confirming the justness of the observation of Herodotus, (ii, 37,) that “they [the Egyptians] are religious to excess, far beyond any other race of men,” and revealing the possession of religious truths, in a crude form, it is true, but sufficiently distinct to show that they are the relics of a divine revelation, of which the mode of communication may never be known. The sceptical speculation of the day makes religious knowledge a gradual development; on the contrary, the readings of monumental remains disclose declension and loss of such knowledge; also, that the tendencies of all religions, with the exception of that of Christ, are downward, unless counteracted by the bringing in, from without, of religious truth. There is a disposition, too, to find a complete circle of such divine truth in olden false religions, so much so that the lover of antiquity beholds with perverted eye, its perverted religions, and becomes their devotee, if not their worshipper. Especially is this the case with Egypt. The life of its people, their customs, manners, sciences, thoughts, and inner being, stand before us in monumental array, with a distinctness hardly less vivid than that of mediaeval history. The mind is charmed at the contemplation, and disposed to find perfection not only in such a civilization, but in the religious belief of such a people. It is quite prepared to see in the brilliant light-points which beautify and somewhat relieve the Egyptian night, well-rounded orbs of doctrine and of faith. Among recent writers on Egyptology (1877) is L’abbe Ancessi. With an imagination as vivid as that which he ascribes to the Egyptians themselves, he conceives a comprehensive scheme of spiritual belief, and invests the crude conceptions of a debased mythology with the garb of the advanced doctrines of Christian faith. The casual reader might easily suppose that

Nile papyri, painted tombs, and sculptured stelae contain “the oracles of God” no less truly than the Holy Scriptures themselves.

The most significant of the resemblances which L’abbe finds is here adduced, for its strange coincidence with one of the sentiments of Job’s proposed inscription, (p. 131 and Excursus V,) as well as for its bearing upon the exegesis of the passage it so closely resembles. It appears in the “Book of the Dead;” the authority is that of Lepsius, Todtenbuch, 130, 28. The personal pronoun is repeated three times; the same particle is used before the word “flesh” in both languages; in the Egyptian e M-haaouef — from his flesh; in the Hebrew, Mibbesari — from my flesh. By the citation of another formula from the same “Book of the Dead,” “He sees from his eyes, he hears from his ears, the truth,” in which the same prepositione e M, “ from,” is used, Ancessi claims that in neither case can it be used in a separistic sense, to wit: that the soul sees “away from,” or apart from the body. With this interpretation agrees grammatical usage elsewhere, as Ancessi shows in his Comparative Grammar of the Semitic and Hamitic Languages — Etudes de Grammaire Comparee, etc., le theme M. Parity of reason, he claims, demands that the preposition min should be rendered in like manner from in the book of Job, (Job et l’ Egypte, etc., 144, 146,) in other words, that Hebrew and hieroglypt both taught that the time should come in the history of the disembodied soul when, through the medium of the flesh, it should behold God.

After the fullest and frankest recognition of the great light the Egyptian, and even the Assyrian, once enjoyed, there rises before our eyes an obverse view painful to contemplate. The ghastliness of a mummy — with which frequently the evidences and memorials of their faith were entombed — symbolizes the degradation, despair, and death which characterized their religion, and which are not to be covered up nor ignored by splendid sentiments gathered here and there from Egyptian rituals; even though their substratum may have been the immortality of some souls, a rigid ordeal for the soul and its deeds, and the future revivifying of the body. A marked, and, indeed, the most salient feature of Egyptian worship, was its adoration of brutes. This worship reaches back to the most ancient times. To a contemplative mind the spectacle is painful and unaccountable — that of the most enlightened nation of antiquity prostrate before the bestial world. It is to be confessed that the serious view which the heathen Plutarch takes of this worship is more worthy of consideration than that of the Christian Clemens, which we adduce below. The former wrote: “The Egyptians, at least the greater part of them, by adoring the animals themselves, and caring for them as for gods, have crammed their ritual full with subjects of laughter and opprobrium. Nor is this the least evil which results from their stupidity. A dangerous notion is implanted, which drives the weak and simple-minded into the worst forms of superstition, and the shrewder and more daring into atheism and beast-like speculations.” — De Iside, 71. Clemens of Alexandria, who was himself, when a heathen, initiated into the Egyptian mysteries, escorts us into the remotest part of the sacred adytum, and under the guidance of a shrine-bearer, who, as “with a grave air he sings a paean in the Egyptian tongue, draws aside a small portion of the veil, as if about to show us the god, and makes us burst into a loud laugh. For the god you sought is not there, but a cat, or a crocodile, or a serpent sprung from the soil, or some such brute animal, which is more suited to a cave than a temple. The Egyptian deity appears, a beast rolling himself on a purple coverlet.” — Hardwick, 2:271. The remark of Olympiodorus, that “what the images of the gods are to the Greeks, that the beasts are to the Egyptians — symbols of the gods to whom they are consecrated,” does not include the whole truth. Plutarch institutes a like comparison between the Egyptians and the Greeks, but charges upon the former, or at least the greater part of them, the adoring of the animals themselves, and the revering of them as gods. (Ibid., 71.) “They reverence some animals,” says Diodorus Siculus, “extravagantly — kaq’ uperbolhn — not only when they are alive, but after they are dead.” Of this worship the same author gives an enlarged description, together with its inexpressible abominations, (i, 83-88, Booth edit.;) mournful facts to which both Herodotus and Strabo bear witness. On the Egyptian worship of beasts see Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, 1:454-460; Prichard, Egyptian Mythology, 301-343.

According to Bunsen, (God in History, 1:226,) the worship of brutes was introduced into the established religion of Egypt about the second century after Menes, and not earlier than the second dynasty. It gradually displaced the purer worship of Osiris, together with the complicated hierarchy of gods, who are generally comprehended in three orders. The principle before suggested, of the tendency of false religions to deterioration and debasement, thus finds ready and painful illustration in Egypt no less than among the Semites generally, as well as in India in the transition from Vedism to Brahminism and thence to Buddhism.

At what time the abominations of phallic worship were introduced into Egypt does not so readily appear. No degradation of religion — of its rites and culture — can be imagined, more outrageous than this. Certainly this worship in Egypt was closely linked with that of Osiris, to whose tragic dismemberment Egyptian mythology traced its origin. (See Plutarch, ibid., xviii; Maurice, Indian Antiquities, 2:101-172; Hardwick, ibid., 2:279-283.) A veil should be drawn over the subject, even in the opinion of Plutarch, who declares that he “omits the more harsh and shocking parts of it,” and that “the mouth should be washed after the recital of them.” (Ibid, sec. 20.) That veil has been sufficiently uplifted by Herodotus, (ii, 48, 49,) who “relates things which bear witness to such a bestiality that we would gladly be able for the honour of human nature to deny them.” — Tholuck. The only justification for the reference to the subject here, is found in the disposition on the part of sceptical philosophy to find on the banks of the Nile the fountainhead of religion, and that, too, to the disparagement of the Bible.

The monuments testify of an ancient practice of sacrificing human beings in connexion with the worship of serpents, as is evinced by the accompanying picture, from a tomb first discovered by Belzoni at Thebes. Before the erected head of the serpent, the attitude of which, on a line with the throats of the victims, tells its gratification in the offered blood, are three human beings just beheaded by the officiating priest. Beneath the arch of the serpent sits the goddess, while the

sacred asp, bearing a human head, is seated upon the serpent’s tail. For other pictorial illustrations of this mournful subject the reader is referred to Kitto’s History of Palestine, 1:583, 584. In one of these, women, probably priestesses, are the active agents who bind the victims and hold them as they bleed to death. Notwithstanding the denial by Egypto-lovers that the Egyptians sacrificed men to their idols, (for instance, Wilkinson in Rawlinson’s Herodotus, 2:71,) the evidence of the monuments confirm the testimony of Manetho and many Greek writers (to wit, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, etc.) to the prevalence among the Egyptians of this revolting practice. The testimony of Manetho, who was a native Egyptian priest, and lived in the third century B.C., is to the effect that in the city Eileithyia, every year, in the dog days, some so-called typhonian men (that is, red-haired men) were burnt alive, and their ashes thrown into the air with winnowing shovels, (Plutarch, Moralia, p. 380;) and that three men were sacrificed to Hera in times remote at Heliopolis, but that King Amosis (about B.C. 1500) put an end to the custom by substituting images of wax. (Porphyry, De Abst., 2:55.) Athenaeus speaks of a work written by Seleucus which treats expressly of the human sacrifices offered by the Egyptians. Osburn declines that “human sacrifices always formed an essential part of the ritual of their idolatry.” — Mon. His. of Egypt, 2:454. See Kenrick, Anc. Egypt, 1:440-448; Denon, Trav., 2:181, 208.

Such are some of the dark features which the gloomy and austere religion of the Nile must have presented in the days of Job. Notwithstanding his extensive acquaintance with the country and the institutions of its people, the candid reader of Job, and the no less candid student of Egypt, cannot fail, we think, of the conviction that the religion of Job differed “by a whole heaven” from that of Egypt. Compare Hardwick, Christ and other Masters, 2:306-360.

But, first, before pronouncing upon Job’s relationship to contemporary religions, let us again glance at the other greatly enlightened neighbour, Chaldaea. The pantheon of the Chaldaean, from most ancient times, was well stocked with divinities, the leading ones of which bore a remarkable family resemblance to those of Egypt, as well as to the more sanguinary deities of Phoenicia. The Chaldaeans, however, do not seem to have ever degraded themselves to the level of the Egyptians, either in worship of the brute creation or in the adoption into their cultus of the shocking phallic worship. Lenormant supposes that underneath their idolatrous worship lay a belief in a sole and universal Divine Being, whose nature, as in all the ancient pantheisms, was to be at the same time one and many. (Chald. Magic, 128-131.) This may have been true of the primordial faith transmitted by Noah, in some stages of its deterioration, but the first records in monumental history point to an idolatry unmistakably corrupt, from which, so far as concerns the popular mind, the essence of true religion had been lost. Lenormant, without sufficient reason, regards this supposed pantheism as the primordial notion of all the ancient Kuschito-Semitic religions.

Unquestionably, at the time of Job, whether he lived early or comparatively late, the popular religion of Egypt, Arabia, Phoenicia, Syria in general, (Chaldaea, and Assyria, was marked by most revolting features, for which it is difficult for the lovers of natural religion to find theories of extenuation or even words of apology. It now appears that the Chaldaean was equally barbarous with the Egyptian and the Phoenician, for the latest researches affirm the prevalence in early Babylonia of human sacrifices. Of greater importance yet, to the religious mind, is the fact that the victim was evidently offered vicariously, which is sufficiently confirmed from the earlier inscriptions. (See W.R. Cooper, Resurrection of Assyria, p. 58,) “A curious fragment of an old Accadian hymn describes how the sinner must give his dearest and nearest, even his offspring, for the sin of his soul, ‘the head of his child for his own head, the brow of his child for his own brow, the breast of his child for his own breast;’ and a passage in the great work on astronomy informs us, that the innocent sacrifice must be offered up by fire. The bloody sacrifices offered to Moloch, therefore, were no Semitic invention, but handed on to them, with so much else, by the Turanian population of Chaldaea.” — Sayce, Bab. Lit., p. 46, (1878.) (See also his article, “Human Sacrifice among the Ancient Babylonians, in Trans. Sac. Bib. Arch, 4:1, pp. 25-31.) Comp. Micah 6:7. This fact assumes a deep interest from the consideration that the early Babylonian language combined distinctly marked Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan elements, as though the great races were more or less revolved in this awful form of sacrifice. Such a conglomeration of language serves as a confirmation to the Scripture truth of the dispersion, and the confusion of tongues, events which took place in the land of Shinar, where Babylon was situated. For information on the early Chaldaean religion the reader is referred to Rawlinson, Ancient Mon., 1:110-141; his Herodotus, 1:480-517; and Lenormant, Chald. Magic, ch. 10.

In the midst of universal idolatry Job stands forth the worshipper of one God. The book of Job discloses God as a spiritual being, (Job 9:11; 10:4; 23:8, 9,) unlimited in power, (Job 9:4-13; 10:7; 11:10; 12:14-25, etc.,) unchangeable, (Job 23:13,) omniscient, (Job 11:11; 21:22; 28:24; 34:21, 22,) holy, (Job 4:18; 15:15; 25:5; 34:10,) and merciful, (Job 5:17-29; 22:17, 18; 33:24; 36:15, 16.) Job displays a consummate knowledge of the moral law in its most subtle relations to evil, (see p. 189,) and a philosophy of morals which constantly reminds us of the teaching of Christ and his apostles. The theory of the moral government of God during the course of the controversy was beclouded, but the sequel discloses God as Jehovah, who chastens that he may save, and who afflicts that man’s highest good may be secured, (Job 5:17-26; 33:19-30; 36:8-12; 42:12.) This moral government grasps the minutiae of life’s actions, (Job 10:14; 11:10; 14:3, 16; 23:10-12; 31:4; 34:21, 22,) adequately recompenses both the just and the wicked, (Job 8:3-7; 22:2-7; 27:13-23; 34:11, 12, 19,) even to the punishment of the latter in another life, (see p. 149,) and comprehends the entire world of the dead, (Job 20:11; 26:5, 6; 36:20,) holding forth to the just the prospect of a final deliverance from the gloom of sheol. See pp. 74, 109.

If Job speaks of idolatry it is in unreserved condemnation, and that he may absolve himself from any conceivable taint, (Job 31:26-28.) And what is of greater moment is, that the idolatry which he specifies is that most common to ancient times — the worship of the sun and moon — which, however disguised, lay at the basis of ancient mythology; for the sun everywhere came to be regarded as the source of life, and the moon was taken up as the feminine complement; all which sooner or later drifted into the corruptions of phallic or procreative worship.

On the subject of satanology or demonology, the views of the book are clear and distinct. There is disclosed, in antagonism to the good, one powerful, subtle, pervasive spirit of evil, endowed with conscious and extended knowledge, whose theatre of activity is the world, and whose subordinate power over nature is not confined to “outward circumstances” — the bare employment of physical resources — as some would hold, but reaches to a certain persuasive influence over men, as is evinced by the by no means fortuitous movement of Chaldaean hordes against Job. (Pp. 23, 34.) In contrast with such enlightened views, views which wonderfully anticipate those of the New Testament, recent exploration has brought to light from among the Babylonians a system of demonology which crowded the elements with evil spirits, who were apparently outside the control of higher spirits, and who wrought inconceivable mischief. These demons spread snares for men, and were the cause of all evils. Diseases were pre-eminently their work. The most formidable demons took the form of the most dreaded diseases. This probably gave rise to the belief that various members of the body were acted upon by particular classes of evil spirits. One class, for instance, seized upon the head; another, upon the forehead; another, upon the chest; while another, supreme in malice, came down upon the life of man, and “bent him like a bundle.” The bodies of men, together with uncultivated wilds and deserts, furnished them a dwellingplace. Even the dead arose from their graves, and in the form of vampires attacked the living. The under world sent forth its horrible sprites, called innin, and the enormous uru-ku, a species of hobgoblins and larvae, to haunt and terrify men. By incantations, demons of various grades might be exorcised, and even the highest genii or demigods be driven away. By the use of charms, amulets, and magic words, the Chaldaean conceived that the bodies and homes of men might be protected against their baleful presence. This belief gave rise to an extensive system of magic. Forms of conjuration, which we cite from Lenormant, (ibid., p. 30,) will further illustrate the terrorism winch everywhere prevailed:

On high they bring trouble, and below they bring confusion. Falling in rain from the sky, issuing from the earth, they penetrate the strong timbers, the thick timbers; they pass from house to house. Doors do not stop them.

Bolts do not stop them.

They glide in at the doors like serpents.

They enter by the windows like the wind…

They take the child from the knees of the man;

They make the free woman leave the house when she has borne a child. They, they are the voices which cry and which pursue mankind. Again: —

From the four cardinal points the impetuosity of their invasion burns like fire. They violently attack the dwellings of man.

They wither everything in the town or in the country.

They oppress the free man and the slave.

They pour down like a violent tempest in heaven and earth. — Ibid., p. 29.

The reader is referred to Lenormant for numerous illustrations. From such considerations it is clear that the religious light reflected from the book of Job did not emanate either from Chaldaea, ancient Canaan, (Phoenicia,) or Egypt. On every subject embraced by the natural religion of the ancients this book speaks with a voice distinct and clear, and from a plane as much more elevated above that of his times as the supernatural is above the natural. Of all the doctrines considered by Job, that on which the least light is shed, is the subject of the intermediate state of the dead. Even here, the simplicity of Job’s belief stands in impressive contrast to the cumbrous faith of the Egyptian, with its long and complicated series of transformations, and its silly punitive transmigrations, (pp. 190, 191,) as well as to that of the Chaldaean, overladen not only by hobgoblins, larvae, and every conceivable grade of demoniacal existence, but by human dead metamorphosed into vampires. Against such beliefs Job, by implication, utters his protest, (Job 7:9, 10; 14:21, 22; comp. Job 14:12;) at least, in his profoundest melancholy he never involves himself in any entanglement which conflicts with the pure and eventual hope of the pious Semite. The work is as remarkable for what it does not, as for what it does, say. Job stands forth from the degraded environment of his times, an exponent of truth, the elements of which are no less simple, pure, and ultimate, than those of light. The age in which he lived was as powerless to taint his mind or pollute his heart as the Egyptian morass of which he himself speaks was to corrupt the light cast back from its surface. The conclusion we deem legitimate, that “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,” (Hebrews 1:1,) elected from the broad wastes of heathendom a Job, together with a Chaldaean Abraham, to the divine order of prophets, (Genesis 20:7;) to receive from above the light of divine truth, that, purely and without contamination, it might be communicated to the darkened family of man.

EXCURSUS No. X.

ASTRONOMY AND THE BOOK OF JOB.

The advanced knowledge of astronomy displayed in the book of Job may, humanly speaking, seem to demand a later period for its writing than that which has been assumed during the progress of the present work. Among scholars, it is recognised that this science received early and profound attention among nations widely separated, and that, in some cases at least, important discoveries were made beyond the mere superficial survey of the heavens. Until recently it has been in dispute which of the four great astronomical peoples, the Chinese, the Hindu, the Egyptian, or the Chaldee, have taken the lead in the discovery of the principles of astronomical science. The first of those mentioned boasts of attainments in this science which, if valid, would give that people the priority and the palm. It seems now to be conceded that the earliest Chinese observations we are acquainted with, sufficiently precise to afford any result useful to astronomy, were made about the year 1100 before our era. These related to meridianal altitudes of the sun, the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the position of the winter solstice in the heavens. See further, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2:745, ninth edition.

The whole matter of Hindu astronomy is still involved in uncertainty. The more prevalent view is, that the knowledge of the Hindu was derived from foreign sources, either through Greek or Arabian channels. As we draw nearer to the home of Job it is important to call attention to the fact that the astronomical knowledge of the Greek was borrowed either from the Egyptian or the Chaldaean. the near neighbors of Job. (See Excursus IX, p. 284.) Thales,

“Wisest of the seven sages,

That great astronomer,”

(thus Timon, cited by Laertius,) as we have before seen, early visited Egypt. Greek writers acknowledge that in this visit he gathered much astronomical and geometrical knowledge. Herodotus declares that Thales predicted an eclipse of the sun, which, from astronomical considerations, Mr. Grote and others suppose to have taken place 610 B.C. Sir Henry Rawlinson (Herodotus, 1:168) is of the opinion that all the knowledge Thales had upon the subject of a solar eclipse was derived from the Chaldaeans, and even the possession of any true scientific knowledge he regards as problematical Diogenes Laertius, however, (s.v., section vii,) attributes the knowledge Thales possessed to the Egyptians, and states that this knowledge indicated the shape of the earth to be that of a sphere, and the eclipse of the moon to arise from its falling into the shadow of the earth. Cicero (De Republica, 1:14) also declares that the first model of a celestial globe was made by Thales. On the contrary, Sir G.C. Lewis, in his work on the “Astronomy of the Ancients,” denies that Thales was cognizant of the shape of the earth. Strabo (iii, 29) affirms that the length of the year, even, was unknown to the Greeks until Eudoxus and Plato went down to Egypt, where they are reputed to have lived thirteen years in the society of the priests. These priests, he says, “were distinguished for their knowledge of the heavenly bodies, but were mysterious and uncommunicative; yet after a time were prevailed upon by courtesy to acquaint them with some of the principles of their science, but the barbarians concealed the greater part of them.”

Aristotle (B.C. 384-322) unquestionably taught the circular form of the earth, deducing it from the fact that “although the moon in its monthly phases has all diversities of outline, so as to be at one time straight, again gibbous or convex, and again concave, yet in its eclipses it has the defining or intersecting line (made by the shadow of the earth) invariably curved. So that, since the moon suffers eclipse by the interposition of the earth, it must be the periphery (of the earth’s shadow) that is the cause, because the earth itself is spherical.” He also still further argues that the earth is round, and of no very great magnitude, “since even in a small change of distance, either to the north or south, there is a manifest change in respect to the horizon, so that the stars which were over our heads undergo a change of position, and do not appear the same, as we travel either to the north or south. In this way some stars are seen in Egypt and in the neighbourhood of Cyprus

which are not visible in the more northerly regions.” — De Coelo, 14:8. It does not appear that at any reasonable period as yet assigned for the writing of the book of Job, any proper view of the earth’s shape had been taken by either Chaldaean, Egyptian, or Greek. Even the enlightened Chaldaeans, Diodorus Siculus informs us, (lib. ii, sec. 31,) “have quite an opinion of their own about the shape of the earth. They imagine it to have the form of a boat turned upside down, and to be hollow underneath.” “This opinion,” says Lenormant, “remained to the last in the Chaldaean sacerdotal schools; their astronomers believed in it, and tried, according to Diodorus, to support it by scientific arguments. It is of very ancient origin, a remnant of the ideas of the purely Accadian period.… Let us imagine, then, a boat turned over; not such a one as we are in the habit of seeing, but a round skiff, like those which are still used under the name of kufa on the shores of the lower Tigris and Euphrates, and of which there are many representations in the historical sculptures of the Assyrian palaces. The sides of this round skiff bend upward from the point of the greatest width, so that they are shaped like a hollow sphere deprived of two thirds of its height, and showing a circular opening at the point of division. Such was the form of the earth according to the authors of the Accadian magical formula and the Chaldaean astrologers of after years.… The interior concavity, opening from underneath, was the terrestrial abyss, ge, where the dead found a home.” — Chaldaean Magic, pp. 150, 151.

The book of Job commits itself to no such trivialities as this. Its sublime, God-inspired conception, notwithstanding Job’s proximity to the Chaldaeans, lifted him above his contemporaries, and saved him from the rock on which they split. In sublime language he says of God, “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” Job 26:7. (See note, also, on Job 37:3; 38:6.) The Septuagint renders the passage literally into Greek, and that, too, about two centuries before Ovid wrote,

Pendebat in aere tellus

Ponderibus librata suis.

Met., 1:11.

Earth, self-poised and self-balanced.

Job makes great note of a constellation, (nahhash bariahh,) “the fleeing serpent,” (Draco or Dragon,) see note on 26:13; and Excursus VIII, p.

275. The stars forming this constellation have borne this name from very ancient times. The Arabs called it El hajje, “the serpent.” Virgil thus speaks of it,

Maximus hic flexu sinuoso elabitur anguis

Circum, perque duas in morem fluminis Arctos.

Georg, 1:244.

Which Dryden renders: —

Around our pole the spiry Dragon glides,

And, like a winding stream, the Bear divides.

Cicero (De Nat. Deorum, 2:42) cites an extended description of this constellation from the poet Aratus, who wrote nearly three centuries before Christ. The association in the text, (Job 36:13,) of the wounding of the fleeing serpent with the preceding clause, “by his breath [or spirit] the heavens are bright.” is worthy of special note; the making bright the heavens by the breath of God grandly suggests the wounding, by the divine hand, of the serpent, which is the scriptural as well as the Egyptian type of evil. In the mythologies of many nations the struggle with evil necessitates the interposition of a divine agent, who crushes or wounds the typical serpent, as is seen in this very constellation, whose head is beneath the foot of Hercules. (See M’Clintock & Strong, Cyclop., vol. 5, page 164.) The Egyptian hieroglyph for “the snake Apop, the symbol of sin,” (Wilkinson,) represents him in the act of flight, but again and again wounded. Brugsch gives five variants of this hieroglyph, in three of which the serpent is pierced with arrows. Hieroglyph. Demot. Worterbuch, i, p. 181. The word Apop or Apep (Apophis) signifies to “mount on high,” (Bunsen,) with the idea, says Brugsch, of “running with elevated head to ascend the heights.” This hieroglyphic determinative was “a very common designation of the serpent Apophis, enemy of the light and of the good; which, therefore, arrays itself against the beaming deity of Ra, and seeks to hinder the good.” — BRUSCH, ibid., i, p. 180. This name, Apep, it will be perceived, strikingly embodies the solemn Hebrew tradition of Satanic ambition to rise, and his correspondingly ignominious fall. See Ancessi, ibid., pp. 233-241, and George Smith, Chaldaean Account, pp. 14, 87-100. The root of this word, Apep, Ap, will remind scholars of the Hebrew bwa, ob, “soothsaying demon,” (Gesenius;) the Sanscrit Ahi, “the serpent,” to wit, the demon Vritra; and the Greek ofiv, ophis, the name which Aratus (82) gives to the constellation of which Job speaks.

It is of interest to note that the very constellations of which Job so grandly sings, Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, are also mentioned by Hesiod (Works and Days, Bohn, pp. 105, 106) and by Homer, (Iliad, 18:486-488,) each of whom associates them with the Hyades, the former also adding Sirius. See Job 9:9; 38:31, 32.

An interesting and important link between the two great ancient rivals in astronomical knowledge is the patriarch Abraham, who, an exile from Chaldaea, resided in Egypt, in the sacred city of On, and, according to Eupolemus, taught the Egyptians astronomy. (Eusebius, Praep. Evang., 9:17.) The Oriental accounts unite in ascribing to Abraham a high degree of astronomical knowledge, as appears from Berosus, cited by Josephus, (Antiq., i, chap. vii,) for he says of Abraham that he was “righteous, and great, and skilful in the celestial science.” — Antiquities, i, chap. 7. Josephus also remarks that “before Abraham came into Egypt they [the Egyptians] were unacquainted with those parts of learning,” [astronomy, etc.] (Ibid., i, chap. 8.) As respects Abraham, the traditions of the Arabian tribes agree with Josephus.

To the Egyptians are ascribed the observation and establishment of the Sothis periods. They early made lists of the rising of stars. The painting in the Ramesseum at Thebes presents a complete map of the Egyptian sky. In the tomb of Rameses IV. (so Brugsch informs us) the thirty-six Decan stars are given, together with their deities.

The great discoveries which have recently been made concerning Chaldaean science confirm the view of Diodorus Siculus, that “the Chaldaeans are far above all other nations in their knowledge of the heavens, and they devote the greatest attention and labour to this science.” Cicero, in his work on “Divination,” (i, 41,) had previously noted that the Chaldaeans excel in their knowledge of the stars, and in the subtlety of their genius. Among others, Josephus (ibid.) also bears witness that “the science of astronomy came from the Chaldaeans into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also.” The superiority of the Chaldaeans, even at a comparatively late period, is further evinced by the fact that Ptolemy, though he lived at Alexandria, cites thirteen Chaldaean observations, ranging from B.C. 721 to B.C. 229, while he does not deign to mention the Egyptians as astronomers (Ideler, cited by Grote, History of Greece, 3:293.) We have not to seek long to find the secret of such lore. The wide Assyrian plains, unbroken by mountain range,

Spread like a sea

Beneath the concave of unclouded skies.

(See farther, Wordsworth’s Excursion, book 4.) The monotony of the landscape naturally led to the contemplation of the variegated heavens. The singular transparency of the atmosphere brought out in surpassing brilliancy the heavenly bodies, and seemed to draw the heavens nearer to man, so that the stars wielded a fascinating power over the minds of men, as Job himself also had observed, (see note 31:26,) and unceasingly lured the thoughtful to the study of the skies. Fragments of planispheres which still remain show that the Chaldaeans early formed maps of the heavens, and grouped the stars into constellations. The constellations which seemed to touch nearest upon the path of the sun they marked off, and eventually gathered together in the signs of the zodiac. (See Records of the Past, 1. 165) At an early period they divided the year into twelve months of thirty days, and by intercalations of various kinds they brought it into harmony with the astronomical year of three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days. The important discovery, implying long-protracted observations, was also made early, that eclipses of the moon repeat themselves after a period of two hundred and twenty-three lunations. The records of them usually begin with the words “According to calculation,” or, “Contrary to calculation, the moon was eclipsed.” In connexion with which statement Sayce remarks, “As the same formulae are sometimes employed for solar eclipses also, it would seem that the problem of calculating them by tracing the shadow as projected on a sphere had already presented itself. The problem, however, was not always successfully solved; and even as late as the seventh century B.C. we find the state astronomer of Assyria, Abil-Istar, reporting that although a watch had been kept on the 28th, 29th, and 30th of Sivan, or May, for an expected eclipse of the sun, the eclipse did not take place after all.” — Bab. Lit., 53. See also Records of the Past, 1:155, 156.

A large proportion of the surviving literature of this people was devoted to treatises on astronomical subjects. The most famous of the libraries of Babylonia, that of Agane, founded by Sargon I., probably in the seventeenth century B.C., contained a great work on astronomy and astrology, entitled “The Observations of Bel,” in seventy two books, which Berosus translated into Greek. (The reader is referred to Rec. of the Past, 1:151-163, for a translation of some of these tablets.) Such attainments were made in this science that, as Sayce informs us, “The catalogue of the astronomical works in the library of Agane enjoins the reader to write down the number of the book he needs, and the librarian will thereupon give him the tablet required.” These books, it seems, were many of them either translated for the library of Sargon from Accadian originals, or based on old Accadian texts.

On Chaldaean science, see also Duncker, History of Antiq., 1:264-286, and Trans. of Soc. of Bib. Archaeology, vol. iii, article by Sayce, “The Astronomy, etc., of the Babylonians.”