Глава 40

Second speech of the Lord. 1–9. God is just. 10–27. Description of hippopotamus (10–19) and crocodile (20–27). Job 40:1. And the Lord answered Job out of the storm and said: Job 40:2. gird up your loins like a husband: I will ask you, and you explain to Me. Job 40:3. Do you want to overthrow My judgment, accuse Me in order to justify yourself? The previous speech about the arranging all-good wisdom of God implicitly contains the idea that God cannot be unjust. The second speech of the Lord is dedicated to the final clarification of this truth. Therefore, it begins with a question full of bewilderment: “Do you want to overthrow My judgment?” By insisting that his suffering was not deserved, Job thereby accused God of injustice. But is he right about this? Can he really act in the role and position of a defender of justice higher than divine? Job 40:4. Do you have a muscle like God? And can you thunder with your voice like Him? Blaming and rejecting Divine Justice, Job is unable to take upon himself the responsibility of preserving truth among people. To be just, one must have the appropriate strength to defend the truth. And, of course, Job doesn’t have it. He does not have the same muscle (cf. Job 22.8) and voice (cf. Job 37.2 etc.) as God, that is, he is not omnipotent (cf. Ps. 28). The contrast of Job's powerlessness in preserving the truth with divine omnipotence in this regard provides undoubted proof that God is just. Job 40:5. Adorn yourself with greatness and glory, clothe yourself in splendor and splendor; Job 40:6. pour out the fury of your anger, look at everything that is proud and humble it; Job 40:7. look at all the arrogant and humiliate them, and crush the wicked in their places; Job 40:8. bury them all in the ground and cover their faces with darkness. Job 40:9. Then I also recognize that your right hand can save you. Continuation of the thought about Job's inability to defend the truth and destroy evil. The ironic nature of the speech (v. 5; cf. Ps 103.1) contains, although not a direct, but still a fairly clear indication that God rules the world according to the laws of the strictest truth. Job 40:10–27. Description of the hippopotamus and leviathan - clear examples of the infinite divine creative power, united in world rule with justice. With all their enormous physical strength, these animals, creatures of the hand of God, submit to the divine will, which humbles everything proud that strives for tyranny (Job 41.2-3, 26). Job 40:10. This is the hippopotamus that I created, just like you; he eats grass like an ox; According to Delitzsch, Lange and others, “hippopotamus” is a Hebraized Coptic-Egyptian word “p-ehe-mau” (p specific member; ehe - bull; mau water), - water bull, hippopotamus. LXX understood “hippopotamus” in the plural sense from the word “behema” - animal, hence their reading: θηρία - animals. Ancient exegetes understood the “hippopotamus” as an elephant, but some details in the description of this animal (v. 11) do not apply to the latter. Created just as well as man (“created just like you”), the hippopotamus belongs to the category of herbivores, but stands out sharply from their environment due to its strength. Job 40:11. behold, his strength is in his loins, and his strength in the muscles of his belly; The seat of power of a hippopotamus is the loins and belly, which does not apply to the elephant, which has tender skin on its belly (cf. 1 Mac 6.46). Job 40:12. turns his tail like a cedar; the veins on his thighs are intertwined; Job 40:13. his legs are like copper pipes; his bones are like iron rods; Thick at the base and thin at the end, the hippopotamus's tail is straight, hard and elastic, like cedar; his body is strewn with intertwined veins; a massive body with bones as hard as iron is supported by legs as strong as copper pipes (cf. Song 5.15). Job 40:14. this is the height of God’s ways; only He who created him can bring His sword closer to him; In terms of its strength and enormity, the hippopotamus is an exemplary work, a creation of God. “Reshit” – “firstborn” (synodal “top of the ways of God”) – first in rank, position (Am 6.1, 6). Instead of the synodal: “He who created him can bring his sword closer to him,” the correct reading of the second half of this verse should be: “His creator gave him his sword.” In accordance with the type of food of the hippopotamus (v. 15), he was given sword-sharp teeth. Job 40:15. the mountains bring him food, and there all the beasts of the field play; Using its sharp teeth, the hippopotamus feeds on crops and vegetation in areas adjacent to the Nile (the coastal hills are “mountains” compared to the lowlands of the river), but its appearance here does not cause disturbances among the animals (“and there all the beasts of the field play”): it is not carnivorous. Job 40:16. he lies down under shady trees, under the shelter of reeds and in swamps; Job 40:17. shady trees cover it with their shadow; willows and streams surround it; Far from the river (v. 15) the hippopotamus appears only when he feels a lack of food. Its usual location is near water, among lotuses (Hebrew “tseelim” “shady trees”) and other vegetation. Job 40:18. behold, he drinks from the river and is in no hurry; remains calm, even if the Jordan rushes to his mouth. Instead of the synodal: “here he drinks from the river and is in no hurry,” the literal translation should be: “let the river swallow him up, he is not afraid.” Water is the native element of the hippopotamus; he is not afraid of the floods of the Nile and the flow of such a fast river as the Jordan. Jordan in the sense of a proper name is used only as an example of a fast river. The literal understanding: “the hippopotamus is not afraid of the Jordan” is unacceptable because in the time of Job there were no hippopotamuses in it. Other exegetes understand “yarden” as a general name: “flow of water”, and bring it closer to the word “yor” - “canal”, which serves to designate the Nile. Job 40:19. Will someone take him before his eyes and pierce his nose with a hook? A person cannot master a hippopotamus either by open force (“in his eyes”) or by cunning. Job.40 – Job.41.26. Description of Leviathan. Job 40:20. Can you pull out Leviathan with a fish and grab his tongue with a rope? Under the name of leviathan (Job 3.8; Ps 73.14, 103.26) of course, as they think, a crocodile. The right to such an understanding is given, by the way, by the Hebrew expression of this verse: “timshok” (“can you pull it out”), which is an allusion to the Coptic name for the crocodile – “temsah” and the modern Arabic “timsah”. The Hebrew language has no special name for this animal, as it is not found in Palestine. It is impossible to catch a crocodile in the usual way when fishing - with a fish, and it is impossible to pull it out of the water by grabbing it by the tongue with a rope. The impossibility is explained by the fact that the crocodile's tongue is attached by a membrane to the two edges of the lower jaw, due to which the animal can neither stretch it out nor stick it out. The ancients, following Herodotus (II, 68), believed that the crocodile had no tongue at all. Job 40:21. will you put a ring in his nostrils? Will you pierce his jaw with a needle? Depending on this, you cannot treat him like a caught fish. The fishermen threaded a ring through the gills of the latter, tied the latter to a rope attached to the shore, and again lowered the fish into the water to keep it alive. Job 40:22. will he beg you a lot and speak to you meekly? The danger of being caught does not threaten the crocodile, and therefore there can be no requests or pleas on its part for the gift or return of lost freedom. Job 40:23. Will he make an agreement with you, and will you take him as your slave forever? Job 40:24. Will you play with him like a bird, and will you tie him for your girls? Moreover, it is impossible to turn him into an obedient instrument that obeys man (“Will you take him as your slave forever?”) and, like a caught bird, an object of children’s amusement. “The crocodile often devours women and children who draw water from the Nile; Who would have thought of turning such a terrible monster into a toy? Job 40:25. will his fishing companions sell it, will it be divided among the Canaanite merchants? One man cannot master a crocodile; “comrades of fishing” cannot do this either, Heb. "habbarim" - "united" - a whole party of fishermen. It is useless to try to catch it with combined efforts, and the dream of dividing the prey into parts among the participants in the fishing is in vain, as the “Kenaanim” - the Phoenicians - did with large fish. Job 40:26. Can you pierce his skin with a spear and his head with a fisherman's point? Job 40:27. Place your hand on it, and remember the struggle: you will not advance. Another means of mastering a crocodile is also useless - resorting to the help of a spear and a spear to pierce the skin and head (cf. Job 41.7–9, Job 41.18–21). To do this, you need to enter into a fight with the monster, but once you dare to make such an attempt, you will not repeat it again. You might be interested in: