BibleTools.info

Bible Verse Explanations and Resources


Loading...

Job 41:12

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

I will not conceal his parts - This is most certainly no just translation of the original. The Vulgate is to this effect: I will not spare him: nor yield to his powerful words, framed for the purpose of entreaty.

Mr. Good applies it to leviathan: -

"I cannot be confounded at his limbs and violence;

The strength and structure of his frame."

The Creator cannot be intimidated at the most formidable of his own works: man may and should tremble; God cannot.

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

I will not conceal his parts - This is the commencement of a more particular description of the animal than had been before given. In the previous part of the chapter, the remarks are general, speaking of it merely as one of great power, and not to be taken by any of the ordinary methods. A description follows of the various parts of the animal, all tending to confirm this general impression, and to fill the hearer with a deep conviction of his formidable character. The words rendered, “I will not conceal,” mean, “I will not be silent;” that is, he would speak of them. The description which follows of the “parts” of the animal refers particularly to his mouth, his teeth, his scales, his eyelids, his nostrils, his neck, and his heart.

Nor his comely proportion - The crocodile is not an object of beauty, and the animal described here is not spoken of as one of beauty, but as one of great power and fierceness. The phrase used here (ערכוּ חין chı̂yn ‛êrekô ) means properly “the grace of his armature,” or the beauty of his armor. It does not refer to the beauty of the animal as such, but to the armor or defense which it had. Though there might be no beauty in an animal like the one here described, yet there might be a “grace” or fitness in its means of defense which could not fail to attract admiration. This is the idea in the passage. So Gesenius, Umbreit, and Noyes render it.

Cross References
comely