Job 41:28

The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

41:1-34 Concerning Leviathan. - The description of the Leviathan, is yet further to convince Job of his own weakness, and of God's almighty power. Whether this Leviathan be a whale or a crocodile, is disputed. The Lord, having showed Job how unable he was to deal with the Leviathan, sets forth his own power in that mighty creature. If such language describes the terrible force of Leviathan, what words can express the power of God's wrath? Under a humbling sense of our own vileness, let us revere the Divine Majesty; take and fill our allotted place, cease from our own wisdom, and give all glory to our gracious God and Saviour. Remembering from whom every good gift cometh, and for what end it was given, let us walk humbly with the Lord.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The arrow - Hebrew "the son of the bow." So Lamentations 3:13, margin. This use of the word son is common in the Scriptures and in all Oriental poetry.

Sling-stones - The sling was early used in war and in hunting, and by skill and practice it could be so employed as to be a formidable weapon; see Judges 20:16; 1 Samuel 17:40, 1 Samuel 17:49. As one of the weapons of attack on a foe it is mentioned here, though there is no evidence that the sling was ever actually used in endeavoring to destroy the crocodile. The meaning is, that all the common weapons used by men in attacking an enemy had no effect on him.

Are turned with him into stubble - Produce no more effect on him than it would to throw stubble at him.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. arrow—literally, "son of the bow"; Oriental imagery (La 3:13; Margin).

stubble—Arrows produce no more effect than it would to throw stubble at him.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The arrow, Heb. 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; of which see on 2 Chronicles 26:14.

Are turned with him into stubble; hurt him no more than a blow with a little stubble.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The arrow cannot make him flee,.... The skin of the crocodile is so hard, as Peter Martyr says, that it cannot be pierced with arrows, as before observed; therefore it is not afraid of them, nor will flee from them;

slingstones are turned with him into stubble; are no more regarded by him than if stubble was cast at him; not only stones out of a sling, but out of an engine; and such is the hardness of the skin of the crocodile, that, as Isidore says (e), the strokes of the strongest stones are rebounded by it, yea, even it is said to withstand against musket shot (f).

(e) Origin. l. 12. c. 6. (f) Mandelsloe in Harris's Voyages, &c. vol. 1. p. 759.

Geneva Study Bible

The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 28. - The arrow cannot make him flee; literally, the son of the bow (comp. Lamentations 3:13, where arrows are called "sons of the quiver"). Sling-stones are turned with him into stubble. (On the use of the sling as a weapon of war in early times, see the author's . 'Hist. of Ancient Egypt,' vol. 1. p. 449; and comp. 'Ancient Monarchies,' vol. 2, pp. 35, 36; 1 Samuel 17:49, 50; 2 Kings 3:25.) (On "stubble" as a metaphor for weakness, see above, Job 21:18, and compare the next verse.) Job 41:28

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

26 If one reacheth him with the sword-it doth not hold;

Neither spear, nor dart, nor harpoon.

27 He esteemeth iron as straw,

Brass as rotten wood.

28 The son of the bow doth not cause him to flee,

Sling stones are turned to stubble with him.

29 Clubs are counted as stubble,

And he laugheth at the shaking of the spear.

משּׂיגהוּ, which stands first as nom. abs., "one reaching him," is equivalent to, if one or whoever reaches him, Ew. 357, c, to which בּלי תקוּם, it does not hold fast (בּלי with v. fin., as Hosea 8:7; Hosea 9:16, Chethb), is the conclusion. חרב is instrumental, as Psalm 17:13. מסּע, from נסע, Arab. nz‛, to move on, hasten on, signifies a missile, as Arab. minz‛a, an arrow, manz‛a, a sling. The Targ. supports this latter signification here (funda quae projicit lapidem); but since קלא, the handling, is mentioned separately, the word appears to men missiles in general, or the catapult. In this combination of weapons of attack it is very questionable whether שׁריה is a cognate form of שׁריון (שׁרין), a coat of mail; probably it is equivalent to Arab. sirwe (surwe), an arrow with a long broad edge (comp. serı̂je, a short, round, as it seems, pear-shaped arrow-head), therefore either a harpoon or a peculiarly formed dart.

(Note: On the various kinds of Egyptian arrows, vid., Klemm. Culturgeschichte, v. 371f.)

"The son of the bow" (and of the אשׁפּה, pharetra) is the arrow. That the ἁπ. γεγρ. תותח signifies a club (war-club), is supported by the Arab. watacha, to beat. כּידון, in distinction from חנית (a long lance), is a short spear, or rather, since רעשׁ implies a whistling motion, a javelin. Iron the crocodile esteems as תּבן, tibn, chopped straw; sling stones are turned with him into קשׁ. Such is the name here at least, not for stumps of cut stubble that remain standing, but the straw itself, threshed and easily driven before the wind (Job 13:25), which is cut up for provender (Exodus 5:12), generally dried (and for that reason light) stalks (e.g., of grass), or even any remains of plants (e.g., splinters of wood).

(Note: The Egyptio-Arabic usage has here more faithfully preserved the ancient signification of the word (vid., Fleischer, Glossae, p. 37) than the Syro-Arabic; for in Syria cut but still unthreshed corn, whether lying in swaths out in the field and weighted with stones to protect it against the whirlwinds that are frequent about noon, or corn already brought to the threshing-floors but not yet threshed, is called qashsh. - Wetzst.)

The plur. נחשׁבוּ, Job 41:29, does not seem to be occasioned by תותח being conceived collectively, but by the fact that, instead of saying תותח וכידון, the poet has formed וכידון into a separate clause. Parchon's (and Kimchi's) reading תוחח is founded upon an error.