Job 40:24

He taketh it with his eyes,.... Or "can men take him before his eyes?" so Mr.

Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.

According to this translation the sense is this, He taketh, or snatcheth, or draweth up it (to wit, the river Jordan) with his eyes, i.e. when he sees it, he trusteth that he can drink it all up; as we use to say, The eye is bigger than the belly: his nose or snout pierceth, &c., i.e. he securely thrusteth his snout into the river, even to the bottom of it, to stir up the mud, because he delights to drink muddy water; and if there be any snares laid for other creatures, he breaks them to pieces. But this verse is otherwise translated by others. Will or can any man take him in his eyes, (i.e. openly, and by manifest force? Surely no. His force and strength is too great for man to resist or overcome; and therefore men are forced to use many wiles and engines to catch him; which is true both of the elephant and of the hippopotamus,) or pierce his nose with snares or gins? No. He may be taken by art and cunning, but not by violence.

Job 40:24 He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.Ver. 24. He taketh it with his eyes] It, that is, Jordan, which he thinks, when he seeth it, to drink up at a draught; but it is better filling his belly than his eye, as we say. Others, He thrusteth his head in up to the eyes through extreme greediness. Brentius readeth it, Oculis suis capitur ipse, decipulis perforatur nasus; and saith, That this creature is taken only by his eyes and nose; for otherwise he is as sleek and slippery as an eel: so is Satan, saith he, neither can we shun his wiles but by the spirit of faith. But Nonne hoc spumosum? Luther in one place calleth allegories, Spumam Scripturae, the froth of the Scriptures (in Gen. iii. p. 67); and in another, the allegorical sense is a beauteous harlot that enticeth idle men, who think themselves in paradise, and in God’ s bosom, when they fall upon such speculations. Gregory and others (who have wholly allegorized this and the former chapter, applying all to the devil and Antichrist), observed not what was the state and scope of this disputation. Some read the text thus, Will any take him in his sight, will any pierce his nose with snares? q.d. That is not the way to take him, or hold him when taken. He must be caught by wiles, and not by main force or open strength (see Pliny to this purpose), although when he is once caught he is soon tamed and made tractable to many uses. See Aristotle’ s history of living creatures (lib. viii. cap. 8, 9). Pliny saith he had seen elephants dance on the rope, and write Greek letters with their feet (lib. ix. cap. 46). His nose pierceth through snares] Or, Will any bore his nose to put in snares? Though he be apt enough to be tamed and taught, yet he will not endure halter, bridle, bit, or ring in his nose; as neither will leviathan, of whom the like is spoken, Job 41:1-2.

(24) His nose pierceth through snares.—Some render, “Shall any take him with snares? while he is looking, shall any pierce through his nose?” The sense seems to be rather, Let one take him by his eyes: i.e., by allurements placed before him, as elephants are taken. By means of snares one may pierce his nose. The Authorised Version seems to be less probably right.

Verse 24. He taketh it with his eyes] He looks at the sweeping tide, and defies it. His nose pierceth through snares.] If fences of strong stakes be made in order to restrain him, or prevent him from passing certain boundaries, he tears them in pieces with his teeth; or, by pressing his nose against them, breaks them off. If other parts of the description would answer, this might well apply to the elephant, the nose here meaning the proboscis, with which he can split trees, or even tear them up from the roots! Thus ends the description of the behemoth; what I suppose to be the mastodon or mammoth, or some creature of this kind, that God made as the chief of his works, exhibited in various countries for a time, cut them off from the earth, but by his providence preserved many of their skeletons, that succeeding ages might behold the mighty power which produced this chief of the ways of God, and admire the providence that rendered that race extinct which would otherwise, in all probability, have extinguished every other race of animals! I am not unapprized of the strong arguments produced by learned men to prove, on the one hand, that behemoth is the elephant; and, on the other, that he is the hippopotamus or river-horse, and I have carefully read all that Bochart, that chief of learned men, has said on the subject. But I am convinced that an animal now extinct, probably of the kind already mentioned, is the creature pointed out and described by the inspiration of God in this chapter. ON Job 40:1 of this chapter we have seen, from Mr. Heath's remarks, that the fourteen first verses were probably transposed. In the following observations Dr. Kennicott appears to prove the point. "It will be here objected, that the poem could not possibly end with this question from Job; and, among other reasons, for this in particular; because we read in the very next verse, That after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, c. If, therefore, the last speaker was not Job, but the Lord, Job could not originally have concluded this poem, as he does at present. "This objection I hold to be exceedingly important and, indeed, to prove decisively that the poem must have ended at first with some speech from God. "And this remark leads directly to a very interesting inquiry: What was at first the conclusion of this poem? This may, I presume, be pointed out and determined, not by the alteration of any one word, but only by allowing a dislocation of the fourteen verses which now begin the fortieth chapter. Chapters xxxviii., xxxix., xl., and xli., contain a magnificent display of the Divine power and wisdom in the works of the Creator; specifying the lion, raven, wild goat, wild ass, unicorn, peacock, ostrich, horse, hawk, eagle, behemoth, and leviathan.

24. The meaning probably is, Shall they take him before his eyes? Or pierce through his nose with a snare? “Before his eyes” or “in his sight” (Proverbs 1:17), that is, openly, when the animal is aware. The words might be taken ironically: Let them take him before his eyes! &c. (comp. Proverbs 1:32), but the interrogative form is more natural. Others consider the language to be a statement of fact: they take him before his eyes, &c. But with this sense the whole meaning of the introduction of the creature in this chapter disappears. Such a description might have found a place in the gallery of animal portraits in the previous chapter, but as a companion picture to that of Leviathan it is out of place.

He taketh it with his eyes - Margin, “Or, will any take him in his sight, or, bore his nose with a gin!” From this marginal reading it is evident that our translators were much perplexed with this passage.

24. He taketh it with his eyes — Before his eyes do they take him: literally, in his eyes, one takes him. So Ewald, Conant, Hitzig, etc.