Job 40:19

Job 40:19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach [unto him].

Ver. 19. He is the chief of the ways of God] i.e. The masterpiece among all the beasts (and perhaps first made), as man is among all earthly creatures, being divini ingenii cura, as one calls him. Of all earthly irrational creatures the elephant is the largest and strongest and of most understanding.

He that made him can make his sword to approach unto him] i.e. God alone can deal with him, and kill him, for no man dare undertake him unless it be by art and cunning; and that in Job’s days, likely, was not yet known or practised. And if God had not given a horn to the rhinoceros, and poison to the dragon (who are the elephant’s most mortal enemies), there were no beasts to be found that could have the better of him. He is of himself long lived, saith Aristotle, but God can and doth cut him off at his pleasure; and so he will those masterless monsters that persecute his people, though they may seem to be out of the reach of his rod. Some read the words thus, He that made him made his sword to be near him; and interpret it as his proboscis or snout, wherewith, as with a sword, he fights, and does many feats. Curtius saith, That when Porus, the Indian king, being wounded in battle, fell down armed to the ground, his elephant with his trunk gently took him up, and set him upon his back again. Some in their wars have fastened sharp swords to the snouts of the elephants, and done much mischief therewith to the enemy.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

β. A description of the strange life and habits of this powerful beast, which, though undaunted by the river flood, is easily captured and destroyed by the guile of man, Job_40:19-24.

19. The chief of the ways of God — He is a chief, ראשׁית, a firstling, perhaps masterpiece of God’s creative energy. The allusion seems to be to the immense bulk, possibly to his type as being that of the earliest of the extinct pachydermata. Jewish and patristic commentators found on this expression, “firstling of God’s ways,” a symbolic representation of Satan.

Can make his sword to approach — Rather, Furnished [him] his sword. Thus, essentially, Bochartus, Umbreit, Schlottmann, Renan, Zockler, etc. Dillmann’s rendering, “which was created so as to attach thereon a sword,” gives a sense weak and clumsy, which by no means satisfies his proposed pointing. The utterly irreconcilable renderings of the Septuagint, “made to be mocked at (εγκαταπαιζεσθαι) by the angels;” and of Ewald, “Yet his Maker blunts his sword,” serve only to show the contrariety of views that have been taken of this vexed passage. Delitzsch well says, “It is not meant that he reached his sword to behemoth, but (on which account לו is intentionally wanting) that he brought forth, i.e., created, its (behemoth’s) peculiar sword, viz.: the gigantic incisors ranged opposite one another.”… The happy paraphrase of the elegant poet Sandys, early (1638) embodied the true sense:

Of God’s great works the chief, lo! he who made

This behemoth, hath armed him with a blade.

He feeds on lofty hills; lives not by prey,

About this gentle prince the subjects play.

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The lower jaw of this animal is provided with enormous ripping, chisel-like canines. (Tristam.) “With these apparently combined teeth the hippopotamus can cut the grass as neatly as if it were mown with the scythe, and is able to sever a tolerably stout and thick stem.” — WOOD, Mammalia, p. 762. He also states that in anger it has been known to bite a man completely in two. (Bib. Animals, page 322.) Ruppel, the German naturalist, captured one of these animals measuring from the snout to the end of the tail fifteen feet; his tusks, from the roots to the point, along the external curve, being twenty-eight inches in length. It is an interesting coincidence that the sword should appear as a characteristic of this animal, in its hieroglyphic name inscribed on Egyptian monuments in an age prior to that of Moses. The third figure from the left is a good representation of the ancient Egyptian scythe or reaping-hook, as depicted on the monuments, and at the same time of the tusk of the hippopotamus. See Excursus VIII, p. 275. Nicander, a Greek poet who lived in the second century B.C., treating of the hippopotamus, speaks of his “destructive sword, or scythe.” κακην… αρπην. — Theriaca, 566. Divinely equipped with a sword, he bears the insignia of a warrior; brought to the test, he proves to be a peaceful grazer of the fields; his sword he wields, not that he may destroy life, but that he may reap the tender and succulent growths of the marsh. Labelled a warrior for nature’s battlefield, he appears simply a successful forager. Other interpreters, (T. Lewis and Canon Cook,) accept the authorized version, and understand that the monster is impenetrable by the sword of man. The latter cites a very ancient Egyptian inscription: “The tepi, (i.e., hippopotamus,) the lord of terrors in the water, which man can not approach unto.”

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19 He is the firstling of the ways of God;

He, his Maker, reached to him his sword.

20 For the mountains bring forth food for him,

And all the beasts of the field play beside him.

21 Under the lote-trees he lieth down,

In covert of reeds and marsh.

22 Lote-trees cover him as shade,

The willows of the brook encompass him.

23 Behold, if the stream is strong, he doth not quake;

He remaineth cheerful, if a Jordan breaketh forth upon his mouth.

24 Just catch him while he is looking,

With snares let one pierce his nose!

God's ways is the name given to God's operations as the Creator of the world in Job 40:19 (comp. Job 26:14, where His acts as the Ruler of the world are included); and the firstling of these ways is called the Behmth, not as one of the first in point of time, but one of the hugest creatures, un chef-d'oeuvre de Dieu (Bochart); ראשׁית not as Pro 8:22; Num 24:20, of the priority of time, but as Amo 6:1, Amo 6:6, of rank. The art. in העשׁו is, without the pronominal suff. being meant as an accusative (Ew. 290, d), equal to a demonstrative pronoun (comp. Ges. 109, init): this its Creator (but so that "this" does not refer back so much as forwards). It is not meant that He reached His sword to behmoth, but (on which account לו is intentionally wanting) that He brought forth, i.e., created, its (behmoth's) peculiar sword, viz., the gigantic incisors ranged opposite one another, with which it grazes upon the meadow as with a sickle: ἀρούρῃσιν κακὴν ἐπιβάλλεται ἅρπην (Nicander, Theriac. 566), ἅρπη is exactly the sickle-shaped Egyptian sword (harpu = חרב). Vegetable food (to which its teeth are adapted) is appointed to the behmoth: "for the mountains produce food for him;" it is the herbage of the hills (which is scanty in the lower and more abundant in the upper valley of the Nile) that is intended, after which this uncouth animal climbs (vid., Schlottm.). בּוּל is neither a contraction of יבוּל (Ges.), nor a corruption of it (Ew.), but Hebraeo-Arab. = baul, produce, from bâla, to beget, comp. aballa, to bear fruit (prop. seed, bulal), root בל, to soak, wet, mix.

(Note: Whether בּליל, Job 6:5; Job 24:6, signifies mixed provender (farrago), or perhaps ripe fruit, i.e., grain, so that jabol, Jdg 19:21, in the signification "he gave dry provender consisting of barley-grain," would be the opposite of the jahushsh (יחשׁ) of the present day, "he gives green provender consisting of green grass or green barley, hashı̂sh," as Wetzst. supposes, vid., on Isa 30:24.)

Job 40:20 describes how harmless, and if unmolested, inoffensive, the animal is; שׁם there, viz., while it is grazing.

In Job 40:21 Saadia correctly translates: Arab. tḥt 'l-ḍâl; and Job 40:22, Abulwalid: Arab. ygṭı̂h 'l-ḍl mdlllâ lh, tegit eum lotus obumbrans eum, by interpreting Arab. 'l-ḍl, more correctly Arab. 'l-ḍâl, with es-sidr el-berrı̂, i.e., Rhamnus silvestris (Rhamnus Lotus, Linn.), in connection with which Schultens' observation is to be noticed: Cave intelligas lotum Aegyptiam s. plantam Niloticam quam Arabes Arab. nûfr. The fact that the wild animals of the steppe seek the shade of the lote-tree, Schultens has supported by passages from the poets. The lotus is found not only in Syria, but also in Egypt, and the whole of Africa.

(Note: The Arab. ḍâl or Dûm-tree, which likes hot and damp valleys, and hence is found much on the northern, and in great numbers on the eastern, shores of the Sea of Galilee, is called in the present day sidra, collect. sidr; and its fruit, a small yellow apple, dûma, collect. dûm, perhaps "the not ending, perennial," because the fruit of the previous year only falls from the tree when that of the present year is ripe. Around Bagdad, as they told me, the Dûm-tree bears twice a year. In Egypt its fruit is called nebq (נבק, not nibq as in Freytag), and the tree is there far stronger and taller than in Syria, where it is seldom more than about four and twenty feet high. Only in the Wdi 's-sidr on the mountains of Judaea have I seen several unusually large trunks. The Kms places the signification "the sweet Dûm-tree" first of all to Arab. ḍâl, and then "the wild D." In hotter regions there may also be a superior kind with fine fruit, in Syria it is only wild - Neshwn (ii. 192) says: "dâla, collect. dâl, is the wild Dûm-tree," - yet I have always found its fruit sweet and pleasant to the taste. - Wetzst.)

The plur. is formed from the primary form צאל, as שׁקמים from שׁקם, Olsh. 148, b; the single tree was perhaps called צאלה (= Arab. ḍâlt), as שׁקמה (Ew. 189, h). Ammianus Marc. xxii. 15 coincides with Job 40:21: Inter arundines celsas et squalentes nimia densitate haec bellua cubilia ponit. צללו, Job 40:22 (resolved from צלּו, as גּללו, Job 20:7, from גּלּו),

(Note: Forms like גּלל, צלל, are unknown to the language, because it was more natural for ease of pronunciation to make the primary form סבבּ into סב than into סבב, גּללו (vid., p. 449), צללו, might more readily be referred to גּלל, צלל (in which the first a is a helping vowel, and the second a root vowel); but although the form קטל and the segolate forms completely pass into one another in inflection, still there does not exist a safe example in favour of the change of vowels of קטל into קטלי; wherefore we have also derived אגלי, Job 38:28, from אגל, not from אגל, although, moreover, ̇̇ frequently enough alternates with ̇̇ (e.g., ישׁעך), and a transition into ̇̇ of the ̇̇ weakened from ̇̇ (e.g., ידכם) also occurs. But there are no forms like נטפי = נטפי from נטף in reality, although they would be possible according to the laws of vowels. In Ges. Handwrterb. (1863) גּללו stands under גּלל (according to the form לבב, which, however, forms לבבו) and צללו under סלל ( a rare noun-form, which does not occur at all from verbs double Ayin).)

is in apposition with the subj.: Lote-trees cover it as its shade (shading it). The double play of words in Job 40:22 is not reproduced in the English translation.

הן, Job 40:23, pointing to something possible, obtains almost the signification of a conditional particle, as Job 12:14; Job 23:8; Isa 54:15. The Arabic version appropriately translates Arab. 'n ṭgâ 'l-nhr, for Arab. ṭgâ denotes exactly like עשׁק, excessive, insolent behaviour, and is then, as also Arab. dlm, ‛tâ, and other verbs given by Schultens, transferred from the sphere of ethics to the overflow of a river beyond its banks, to the rush of raging waters, to the rising and bursting forth of swollen streams. It does not, however, terrify the behmoth, which can live as well in the water as on the land; לא יחפּוז, properly, it does not spring up before it, is not disturbed by it. Instead of the Jordan, Job 40:23, especially in connection with יגיח, the 'Gaihn (the Oxus) or the 'Gaihn (the Pyramus) might have been mentioned, which have their names from the growing force with which they burst forth from their sources (גּיח, גּוּח, comp. 'gâcha, to wash away). But in order to express the notion of a powerful and at times deep-swelling stream, the poet prefers the ירדּן of his fatherland, which moreover, does not lie so very far from the scene, according to the conception at least, since all the wadis in its neighbourhood flow directly or indirectly (as Wdi el-Meddn, the boundary river between the district of Suwt and the Nukra plain) into the Jordan. For ירדּן (perhaps from ירד)

(Note: Certainly one would have expected ירדּן like גּרזן, while ירדּן like יעבּץ, יעזר, appears formed from רדן; nevertheless ירדּן (with changeable Ssere) can be understood as a change of vowel from ירדּן (comp. ישׁב for ישׁב).)

does not here signify a stream (rising in the mountain) in general; the name is not deprived of its geographical definiteness, but is a particularizing expression of the notion given above.

The description closes in Job 40:24 with the ironical challenge: in its sight (בּעיניו as Pro 1:17) let one (for once) catch it; let one lay a snare which, when it goes into it, shall spring together and pierce it in the nose; i.e., neither the open force nor the stratagem, which one employs with effect with other animals, is sufficient to overpower this monster. מוקשׁים is generally rendered as equal to חחים, Isa 37:29; Eze 19:4, or at least to the cords drawn through them, but contrary to the uniform usage of the language. The description of the hippopotamus

(Note: Vid., Grehm, Aus dem Leben des Nilpferds, Gartenlaube 1859, Nr. 48, etc.)

is not followed by that of the crocodile, which also elsewhere form a pair, e.g., in Achilles Tatius, iv. 2, 19. Behemoth and leviathan, says Herder, are the pillars of Hercules at the end of the book, the non plus ultra of another world distant from the scene. What the same writer says of the poet, that he does not "mean to furnish any contributions to Pennant's Zoologie or to Linnaeus' Animal Kingdom," the expositor also must assent to.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Chief of the works of God; so "ways" (Job 26:14; Pro 8:22).

can make his sword to approach--rather, "has furnished him with his sword" (harpe), namely, the sickle-like teeth with which he cuts down grain. English Version, however, is literally right.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 19. He is the chief of the ways of God] The largest, strongest, and swiftest quadruped that God has formed.

He that made him] No power of man or beast can overcome him. God alone can overcome him, and God alone could make his sword (of extinction) approach to him.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(19) He is the chief of the ways of God.—This is surely more applicable to the elephant than the hippopotamus, considering the great intelligence and usefulness of the elephant. The last clause is very obscure. Some render, “He only that made him can bring his sword near unto him;” or, “He that made him hath furnished him with his sword.” Others, “He that would dress him (as meat) let him come near him with his sword !” indicating the inequality of the contest. Perhaps a combination of the first and last is best—“Let his Maker (but no one else venture to) approach him with His sword.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19, 20. These verses are connected,

19. He is the chief of the ways of God;

He that made him provideth him with his sword;

20. For the mountains, &c.

By “chief,” lit. beginning, is meant the first in magnitude and power, in whom the full, fresh creative force has embodied itself. The meaning of the second clause is less certain. The reference seems to be to the teeth or the eye-tusks of the hippopotamus, which are said to be two feet long, and with which he shears the vegetation as with a sword or sickle.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Surely the mountains bring him forth food,.... Grass, which grows on mountains, and is the food of the river horse as well as of the elephant; and therefore is furnished with teeth like a scythe to mow it down; and it is not a small quantity that will suffice it, mountains only can supply it; and marvellous it is that a creature bred in a river should come out of it to seek its food on mountains. There is a creature in the northern parts, as in Russia, Greenland, &c. which is called morss and sea morss, and by the description of it is much like the river horse, of the size of an ox, and having an head like one, with two large long teeth standing out of its upper jaw, and an hairy skin (a), said to be an inch thick, and so tough that no lance will enter it (b); it comes out of the sea, and by its teeth gets up to the tops of mountains, and having fed on grass rolls itself down again into the sea; and this it does by putting its hinder feet to its teeth, and so falls from the mountain with great celerity, as on a sledge (c);

where all the beasts of the field play; skip and dance, and delight in each other, being in no fear of behemoth; whether understood of the elephant or river horse; since neither of them are carnivorous creatures that feed on other animals, but on grass only; and therefore the beasts of the field may feed with them quietly and securely. Pliny (d) says of the elephant, that meeting with cattle in the fields, it will make signs to them not to be afraid of it, and so they will go in company together.

(a) Olaus Magus ut supra, (De Ritu. Septent. Gent.) l. 21. c. 19. Vid. Bochart. ut supra, (Apud Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 14.) col. 763. Eden's Travels, p. 318. (b) See the North West Fox, p. 232. Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 115, 120. Supplement, p. 194. (c) Olaus Magnus, ut supra, (De Ritu. Septent. Gent. l. 21. c. 19.) & Eden's Travels, ut supra. (p. 318.) (d) Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 7.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

He is the chief of the ways of God - In size and strength. The word rendered “chief” is used in a similar sense in Num 24:20, “Amalek was the first of the nations;” that is, one of the most powerful and mighty of the nations.

He that made him can make his sword approach unto him - According to this translation, the sense is, that God had power over him, notwithstanding his great strength and size, and could take his life when he pleased. Yet this, though it would be a correct sentiment, does not seem to be that which the connection demands. That would seem to require some allusion to the strength of the animal; and accordingly, the translation suggested by Bochart, and adopted substantially by Rosenmuller, Umbreit, Noyes, Schultens, Prof. Lee, and others, is to be preferred - “He that made him furnished him with a sword.” The allusion then would be to his strong, sharp teeth, hearing a resemblance to a sword, and designed either for defense or for the purpose of cutting the long grass on which it fed when on the land. The propriety of this interpretation may be seen vindicated at length in Bochart, “Hieroz.” P. ii. Lib. v. c. xv. pp. 766, 762. The ἅρπη harpē, i. e. the sickle or scythe, was ascribed to the hippopotamus by some of the Greek writers. Thus, Nicander, “Theriacon,” verse 566:

Η ἵππον, τὸν Νεῖλος ύπερ Σάιν αἰθαλοεσσαν

Βόσκει, ἀρούρησιν δὲ κακὴν ἐπιβάλλεται

ἍΡΠΗΝ.

Ee hippon, ton Neilos huper Sain aithaloessan

Boskei, arourēsin de kakēn epiballetai.

Harpēn

On this passage the Scholiast remarks, “The ἅρπη harpē, means a sickle, and the teeth of the hippopotamus are so called - teaching that this animal consumes (τρώγει trōgei) the harvest.” See Bochart also for other examples. A slight inspection of the “cut” will show with what propriety it is said of the Creator of the hippopotamus, that he had armed him with a sickle, or sword.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Stakes. Serpents attack the eyes of the elephant, and sometimes drag it by the trunk into the deep, where it is drowned. (Pliny viii. 12.; Solin xxxviii.) --- Others read with an interrogation: "Shall one take?" &c. Will any one dare to attack it openly? The elephant is taken by stratagem, either in pits covered with a little earth, or by a tame elephant in an inclosure, and (Calmet) lying on her hack to receive the male. (Aristotle, anim. v. 2.) --- When he has entered, the gate is shut, and the animal is tamed by hunger; being thus taken by his eyes, Judith x. 17. Chaldean, "They pierce his nostrils with bands." Thus other animals are led about, (ver. 21) and the elephant might be so treated in those days; though of this we have no account. (Calmet) --- Protestants, "his nose pierceth through snares;" or marginal note, "will any bore his nose with a gin?" Here they conclude this chapter, which commences chap. xxxix. 31., in Hebrew. But the Septuagint agree with us. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Of the ways of God, i.e. of God’s works, to wit, of that sort, or among living and brute creatures. This is eminently and unquestionably true of the elephant, in regard of his vast bulk and strength, joined with great activity, and especially of his admirable sagacity and aptness to learn, and of his singular usefulness to mankind, his lord and master, and God’s vicegerent in the world, and many other commendable qualities. And the hippopotamus also is in some sort, as others note, the chief, or one of the chief, of God’s works, in regard of its great bulk, and strength, and sagacity, and the manner of his living, both in the water and upon the land. But it must be granted that the elephant doth exceed the hippopotamus in many things.

Though he be so strong and terrible, yet God can easily subdue and destroy him, either immediately, or by arming other creatures, as the rhinoceros, or dragon, or tiger, against him. Or, he that made him hath applied or given to him his sword, or arms, to wit, his trunk, which may not unfitly be called his sword, because thereby he doth both defend himself and offend his enemies. And this trunk of his being a thing very observable and admirable in him, and therefore not likely to be neglected in his description, if it were not intended by his tail, Job 40:17, may seem to be designed in these words.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He is the chief of the ways of God. This is the main argument in favour of the elephant, rather than the hippopotamus, being intended (see Schultens, ad loc.). It has, indeed, been argued that some specimens of the hippopotamus exceed the elephant in height and bulk (Canon Cook, in the "Speaker"s Commentary," vol. 4. p. 19); but no modern naturalist certainly would.place the former animal above the latter in any catalogue raisonee of animals arranged according to their size and importance. The elephant, however, may not have been known to the author of Job, or, at any rate, the Asiatic species, which seems not to have been imported into Assyria before the middle of the ninth century B.C. In this case, the hippopotamus might well seem to him the grandest of the works of God. He that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. This is explained to mean, "Only God can attack behemoth with success and slay him; man is powerless to do so" (Canon Cook, Stanley Leathes, Revised Version). But the Egyptians, from very early times, used to attack the hippopotamus and slay him (Wilkinson, in the author"s "Herodotus," vol. 2, p. 100). It is better, therefore, to translate the passage, with Schultens, "He that made him hath furnished him with his sword," and to understand by "his sword" those sharp teeth with which the hippopotamus is said to "cut the grass as neatly as if it were mown" and to sever, as if with shears" a tolerably stout and thick stem" (Wood, "Natural History," vol. 1. p. 762). Compare the "Theriaca" of Nicander, 11. 566, 567 H ippou toin aiyaloessan Boskei arourhsin de kakhlletai arphn .

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The chief - He is one of the chief of God's works, in regard of its great bulk and strength.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

chief of the creatures

"most important of the creatures" or "strongest of the creatures"

the creatures of God. Only God

Yahweh speaks as if he were another person. AT: "of my creatures. Only I, God" (See: Pronouns)

the hills provide him with food

The hills are spoken of as if they were people capable of giving him food. AT: "food grows on the hills for him" (See: Personification)

lotus plants

flowering plants that float on the water in swampy areas

reeds

tall grasses found in swamps or marshes

translationWords

creature

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

He is the first of God’s ways He was created at the beginning to be the chief of all animals.

his Maker The Holy One, blessed be He, Himself will slaughter him.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.