Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Job 41

What madness it is to finish this first pass!

You will drag Leviathan with a hook? 1
or with rope sink his tongue
can you set a bullrush in his nose 2
or with thorn pierce his cheek
will he make many supplications to you? 3
if he will speak to you tenderly
will he cut a covenant with you 4
will you take him for servant for ever

will you laugh with him as with a bird? 5
or will you bind him for your lasses?
will the associates bargain for him? 6
will they divide him among traders?
can you fill with thorns his skin 7
or with whirring fish his head

set on him your open palm 8
remember the battle and do not add to it
lo his waiting gives the lie 9
surely even to see him is to be repelled
not fierce is one that will rouse him 10
so who is he that before my face will present himself?
who receives me that I may repay him? 11
under all the heavens he is mine

I will not keep silence in his deceptions 12
nor the words of his power nor the beauty of his value
who will reveal the face of his clothing? 13
in his double bridle who will come?
the doors of his face who will open? 14
his surrounding teeth horrible
a growing stream of shields 15
shutting up the impress of trouble
one to one they approach 16
and spirit cannot come between them
each to its other clings 17
they are captured and not dispersed

his sneezing shines a light 18
and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn
from his mouth lamps walk 19
and a striking of fire escapes
he snorts forth smoke 20
as the beloved blows the bullrushes

his being enflames coals 21
and a flash from his mouth goes forth
in his neck lodges might 22
and in his face faintness dances
the flaps of his flesh cling 23
poured on him without slippage

his heart poured like a stone 24
so poured like the lower pierced grinding stone
from his height the pillars shrink 25
from the breaking they make themselves clean from sin
a sword taking hold of him is not set 26
shaft dart and javelin

he counts iron straw 27
as a rotten tree brass
the child of the bow does not make him flee 28
to stubble turned by him are stones from a sling
as stubble he counts a bludgeon 29
and he laughs at the quake of a spear

his underparts are sharp potsherds 30
he spreads cuttings in the dirt
he makes the ocean deep boil like a pot 31
the sea he sets as spices
after him is an enlightened track 32
he counts the depth gray-haired

in all dust is his parable 33
the one who is made without fear
all the exalted he sees 34
he is king over all the children of pride

41.6 To what extent is Leviathan a symbol of Christ?
41.10 the verbs rouse and present oneself are threads in the story.
41.11 Romans 11:35
41.12 value: heavily used in Leviticus
41.15 this is the work of Christ and reflects the wording again of chapter 3
41.20 the language is too full of double entendres to translate as if imagining a monster.
41.25 height: (13:11, 31:23) second connection with the language of Leviticus
41.30 =2:8
is there a shade of ridicule as in the medieval portraits of the dragon in Revelation
41.31 Song 5:13

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