Job 41:4

Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) A servant for ever.—The crocodile being probably quite untameable.

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

Will he make a covenant with thee? - That is, will he submit himself to thee, and enter into a compact to serve thee? Such a compact was made by those who agreed to serve another; and the idea here is, that the animal here referred to could not be reduced to such service - that is, could not be tamed.

Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? - Canst thou so subdue him that he will be a perpetual slave? The meaning of all this is, that he was an untamable animal, and could not be reduced, as many others could, to domestic use.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4. Can he be tamed for domestic use (so Job 39:10-12)?

Matthew Poole's Commentary

A covenant, to wit, to do thee faithful service, as the next words explain it. Canst thou bring him into bondage, and force him to serve thee?

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Will he make a covenant with thee?.... To live in friendship or servitude, as follows;

wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? oblige him to serve thee for life, or reduce him to perpetual bondage; signifying, that he is not to be tamed or brought into subjection; which is true of the whale, but not of the crocodile; for several authors (i) speak of them as making a sort of a truce with the priests of Egypt for a certain time, and of their being tamed so as to be handled, and fed, and brought up in the house.

(i) Herodot, ut supra, (Euterpe, sive, l. 2.) c. 69. Aelian. l. 8. c. 2. & l. 10. c. 21. Solin. c. 45. Plin. l. 8. c. 46.

Geneva Study Bible

Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take {n} him for a servant for ever?

(n) To do your business, and be at your command?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. Will he consent to be one of thy domesticated animals, and serve thee?

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4 - Will he make a covenant with thee? As captive monarchs do. Wilt thou take him as a servant for ever? (comp. Exodus 21:6; Deuteronomy 15:17). Job 41:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

1 Dost thou draw the crocodile by a hoop-net,

And dost thou sink his tongue into the line?!

2 Canst thou put a rush-ring into his nose,

And pierce his cheeks with a hook?

3 Will he make many supplications to thee,

Or speak flatteries to thee?

4 Will he make a covenant with thee,

To take him as a perpetual slave?

5 Wilt thou play with him as a little bird,

And bind him for thy maidens?

In Job 3:8, לויתן signified the celestial dragon, that causes the eclipses of the sun (according to the Indian mythology, râhu the black serpent, and ketu the red serpent); in Psalm 104:26 it does not denote some great sea-saurian after the kind of the hydrarchus of the primeval world,

(Note: Vid., Grsse, Beitrge, S. 94ff.)

but directly the whale, as in the Talmud (Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talm. 178f.). Elsewhere, however, the crocodile is thus named, and in fact as תּנּין also, another appellation of this natural wonder of Egypt, as an emblem of the mightiness of Pharaoh (vid., on Psalm 74:13.), as once again the crocodile itself is called in Arab. el-fir‛annu. The Old Testament language possesses no proper name for the crocodile; even the Talmudic makes use of קרוקתא equals κροκόδειλος (Lewysohn, 271). לויתן is the generic name of twisted, and תנין long-extended monsters. Since the Egyptian name of the crocodile has not been Hebraized, the poet contents himself in תּמשׁך with making a play upon its Egyptian, and in Arab. tmsâḥ, timsâḥ,

(Note: Herodotus was acquainted with this name (χάμψαι equals κροκόδειλοι); thus is the crocodile called also in Palestine, where (as Tobler and Joh. Roth have shown) it occurs, especially in the river Damr near Tantra.)

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