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.

Verse 15. - His scales are his pride; or, his pride is in the channeling of his scales (literally, of his shields). The scales of the crocodile are arranged in five rows along his entire back, with a depression between the rows which is like a "channel." Each individual scale resembles a shield. They are shut up together as with a close seal; each, i.e. closely attached to its fellow,so that there is no space between them. "A rifle-ball," according to Canon Tristram, "glances off from them as from a rock" ('Natural History of the Bible,' p. 352).

His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. This is notoriously true of the crocodile, whose back and tail are covered with scales, which are in a measure impenetrable and invincible: which all writers concerning it, and travellers that have seen it, agree in; See Gill on Ezekiel 29:4; but the skin of the whale is smooth; the outward skin is thin, like parchment, and is easily pulled off with the hand; and its under skin, though an inch thick, is never stiff nor tough, but soft (d): though, if Nearchus (e) is to be credited, he reports, that one was seen fifty cubits long, with a scaly skin all over it a cubit thick; and such, it is said, were by a storm brought into our river Trent some years ago, and cast ashore, which had scales upon their backs very hard, as large and thick as one of our shillings (f). But Aben Ezra interprets this of the teeth of the leviathan, and in which he is followed by Hasaeus; which are strong like a shield, as the words used signify; so Mr. Broughton,

"the strong shields have pride:''

but then this is as applicable, or more so, to the scales of the crocodile; which are so close as if they were sealed together, and are like a shield, its defence, and in which it prides itself.

(d) Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 146, 147, 152. (e) Apud Arrian. in Indicis. (f) Vid. Wesley's Dissertations on Job, dissert. 38. p. 290.

15. Rather, his "furrows of shields" (as "tubes," "channels," see on [564]Job 40:18), are, &c., that is, the rows of scales, like shields covering him: he has seventeen such rows.

shut up—firmly closed together. A musket ball cannot penetrate him, save in the eye, throat, and belly.

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