Teks -- Job 40:16 (NET)

40:16 Look at its strength in its loins, and its power in the muscles of its belly.

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per frasa)

Wesley: Job 40:16 - Strength

He hath strength answerable to his bulk, but this strength by God's wise and merciful providence is not an offensive strength, consisting in, or put forth by horns or claws, as it is in ravenous creatures, but only defensive and seated in his loins, as it is in other creatures.

JFB: Job 40:16 - navel

Rather, "muscles" of his belly; the weakest point of the elephant, therefore it is not meant.

Clarke: Job 40:16 - His strength is in his loins

His strength is in his loins - This refers to his great agility, notwithstanding his bulk; by the strength of his loins he was able to take vast springs, and make astonishing bounds.

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per Ayat)

Poole: Job 40:16 - His force is in the navel of his belly

He hath strength answerable to his bulk, but this strength by God’ s wise and merciful providence is not an offensive strength, consisting in or put forth by horns or claws, as it is in ravenous creatures; but only defensive, and seated in his loins, as it is in other creatures, whereby he is rendered more serviceable to men by the carrying of vast burdens.

His force is in the navel of his belly which though in the elephant it be weaker than his loins, whence the rhinoceros fighting with him aims at that part; yet hath a more than ordinary strength in it, as appears by the binding of the heaviest burdens under and about it. This also agrees to the hippopotamus in an eminent degree, whose whole skin is noted by ancient writers to be harder than any other creature’ s, and almost impenetrable.

Haydock: Job 40:16 - Places

Places, insomuch that Ælian (iv. 24.) styles it a "beast of the marshes." It is fabulous that it is forced to sleep against a tree, as if it could not rise without much difficulty. (Calmet) ---

Septuagint, ( 14 ) "This is the beginning or chief ( Greek: arche ) of the creation of the Lord, being made for his angels to play with, or beat. Departing to the craggy rock, it has made sport for the quadrupeds in the field. It sleepeth under all sorts of trees; near the reed and papyrus, and the boutomon, or ox-herb." (Haydock)

Gill: Job 40:16 - Lo now, his strength is in his loins // and his force is in the navel of his belly

Lo now, his strength is in his loins,.... The strength of the elephant is well known, being able to carry a castle on its back, with a number of men therein; but what follows does not seem so well to agree with it;

and his force is in the navel of his belly; since the belly of the elephant is very tender; by means of which the rhinoceros, its enemy, in its fight with it, has the advantage of it, by getting under its belly, and ripping it up with its horn ^s. In like manner Eleazar the Jew killed one of the elephants of Antiochus, by getting between its legs, and thrusting his sword into its navel ^t; which fell and killed him with the weight of it. On the other hand, the "river horse" is covered with a skin all over, the hardest and strongest of all creatures ^u, as not to be pierced with spears or arrows ^w; and of it dried were made helmets, shields, spears, and polished darts ^x. That which Monsieur Thevenot ^y saw had several shot fired at it before it fell, for the bullets hardly pierced through its skin. We made several shot at him, says another traveller ^z, but to no purpose; for they would glance from him as from a wall. And indeed the elephant is said to have such a hard scaly skin as to resist the spear ^a: and Pliny ^b, though he speaks of the hide of the river horse being so thick that spears are made of it; yet of the hide of the elephant, as having targets made of that, which are impenetrable.