Job 41:9

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Will not one be cast down even at the sight of him?

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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תֹּחַלְתּ֥וֹ

tôwcheleth

H8431

“hope · his”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 6× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H3176

TWOT: 859b

hope

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

7: words
7: distinct lemmas
Wisdom: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is תֹּחַלְתּ֥וֹ hope H8431 — appearing just 6 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

תֹּחַלְתּ֥וֹ hope H8431

Shared distinctive vocabulary

תֹּחַלְתּ֥וֹ hope H8431 occurs in 6 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
2 nouns
1 preposition
1 adverb
1 particle

Verb forms

נִכְזָ֑בָה Niphal · Perfect
יֻטָֽל Hophal · Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 20 words from the Hebrew and 17 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 7 Hebrew tokens and 10 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Job 41:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Deuteronomy 28:34 so that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see.
1 Samuel 3:11 Yahweh said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone who hears it shall tingle.
Isaiah 28:19 As often as it passes though, it shall take you; for morning by morning shall it pass through, by day and by night: and it shall be nothing but terror to understand the message.
Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Job 41:9 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

הֵן תֹּחַלְתּ֥וֹ נִכְזָ֑בָה הֲגַ֖ם אֶל מַרְאָ֣יו יֻטָֽל

Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Will not one be cast down even at the sight of him?

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Job 41:9 Septuagint · lemma form

ἀνήρ ὁ ἀδελφός αὐτός προςκολλάω συνἐχω καί οὐ μή ἀποσπάω

At his sneezing a light shines, and his eyes are as the appearance of the morning star.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on Job 41:9 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Commentary source

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Job 41:9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not [one] be cast down even at the sight of him?

Ver. 9. Behold, the hope of him is in vain] Heb. is lying. A man may promise himseff or others to take the whale, but how or when will he effect it? It is a misery to lie languishing at Hope’s Hospital, and after all to be disappointed; to labour all night, and take nothing, &c.

Shall not one be cast down at the sight of him?] Surely there is cause enough to be cast down, if he be so big and dreadful to behold as is reported. {{See Trapp on "Job 41:1"}

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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary

Job 41:9-10. 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, אכזר, 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?

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

That is, casteth out flames of fire.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

the hope--of taking him.

cast down--with fear "at the (mere) sight of him."

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

Adam Clarke's Commentary

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.

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

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Behold the hope of him is in vain—i.e., the hope of the rash man who would venture to attack him: at the sight of him, i.e., the infuriated crocodile.

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

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

9. the hope of him is in vain] Rather, behold, one’s hope is belied; lit. his hope. The hope of the assailant to overcome Leviathan is disappointed.

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.

John Gill's Exposition

Behold, the hope of him is in vain,.... Of getting the mastery over him, or of taking him; and yet both crocodiles and whales have been taken; nor is the taking of them to be despaired of; but it seems the "orca", or the whale with many teeth, has never been taken and killed (o);

shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? the sight of a whale is terrible to mariners, lest their ships should be overturned by it; and some have been so frightened at the sight of a crocodile as to lose their senses: and we read of one that was greatly terrified at seeing the shadow of one; and the creature before mentioned is supposed to be much more terrible (p).

(o) Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 846. (p) Scheuchzer. ib.

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

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Behold, the hope of him is in vain - That is, the hope of taking him is vain.

Shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? - So formidable is his appearance, that the courage of him who would attack him is daunted, and his resolution fails. This agrees well also with the crocodile. There is perhaps scarcely any animal whose appearance would be more likely to deter one from attacking him.

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

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Sneezing. When the whale breathes, it causes the water to foam. (Pineda) (Menochius) --- The eyes of the crocodile are also (Haydock) very bright, when out of the water. (Pliny viii. 25.) They appear first, and therefore were used as an hieroglyphic of Aurora, (Horus i. 26.) or of the morning star. (Haydock) --- Syriac, "His look is brilliant." Arabic, "The apples of his eyes are fiery, and his eyes are like the brightness of the morning." Septuagint, "like Aurora." (Calmet) --- Olaus (xxi. 5.) says, "that they eyes of the whale shine at night,...and at a distance, are taken by fishermen for great fires."

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).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

The hope of him; either,

1. Of the fish, i.e. the hope of taking or conquering him. Or rather,

2. Of the man who laid hands upon him, as hoping to take him by force, but in vain.

Shall not; the prefix he being put for halo, as it is ofttimes in the Hebrew text, as Gen 27:36; 1Sa 2:28; Jer 3:6; Jer 31:20; Eze 20:30.

Even at the sight of him; not only the fight, but the very sight of him is most frightful. Such is 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 affrighted out of their wits.

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

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

9. Of him — The rash assailant.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

Behold, the hope of him is in vain; i.e. the hope of capturing or killing him. Shah not one be cast down even at the sight of him? The very sight of the savage and invulnerable animal is enough to make a man fall to the ground with fear.

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

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Hope - The hope of taking or conquering him.

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

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

they stick together and cannot be separated He is still repeating his language, that they [the scales] are stuck together and each one is joined to the next one so that they should not separate from each other.

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.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Job, in the Wisdom, opens this verse with 7 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is tôwcheleth (“hope”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “hope” (tôwcheleth) shape what this verse is saying?
This is the first place “hope” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Psalms 39:7, which shares the word «hope», read alongside this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«נִכְזָ֑בָה» is a Niphal Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Joseph Benson's Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 10 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.