Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 40:16

Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.

16 18. These verses read,

16. Lo now, his strength is in his loins,

And his force in the sinews of his belly.

17. He bendeth his tail like a cedar;

The muscles of his thighs are knit together.

18. His bones are pipes of brass;

His limbs are like bars of iron.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Lo now, his strength is in his loins – The inspection of the figure of the hippopotamus will show the accuracy of this. The strength of the elephant is in the neck; of the lion in the paw; of the horse and ox in the shoulders; but the principal power of the river-horse is in the loins; compare Nah 2:1. This passage is one that proves that the elephant cannot be referred to.

And his force is in the navel of his belly – The word which is here rendered navel ( sharyr) means properly firm, hard, tough, and in the plural form, which occurs here, means the firm, or tough parts of the belly. It is not used to denote the navel in any place in the Bible, and should not have been so rendered here. The reference is to the muscles and tendons of this part of the body, and perhaps particularly to the fact that the hippopotamus, by crawling so much on his belly among the stones of the stream or on land, acquires a special hardness or strength in those parts of the body. This clearly proves that the elephant is not intended. In that animal, this is the most tender part of the body. Pliny and Solinus both remark that the elephant has a thick, hard skin on the back, but that the skin of the belly is soft and tender. Pliny says (Hist. Nat. Lib. viii. c. 20), that the rhinoceros, when about to attack an elephant, seeks his belly, as if he knew that that was the most tender part. So Aelian, Hist. Lib. xvii. c. 44; see Bochart, as above.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 16. 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.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

He hath strength answerable to his bulk, but this strength by Gods 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 creatures, and almost impenetrable.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

16. navelrather, “muscles”of his belly; the weakest point of the elephant, therefore itis not meant.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

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.

s Aelian. de Amimal. l. 17. c. 44. Plin. l. 8. c. 10, 20. Vid. Solin. c. 38. Diodor. Sic. l. 3. p. 167. & Strabo. Geograph. l. 16. p. 533. t Joseph. Ben Gorion. Hist. Heb. l. 3. c. 20. 1 Maccab. vi. 46. u Diodor. Sic. ut supra. (l. 3. p. 167) Plin. l. 8. c. 25. w Ptolem. Geograph. l. 7. c. 2. Fragment. Ctesiae ad Calcem Herodot. p. 701. Ed. Gronov. Boius apud Kircher. China cum Momument. p. 193. x Herodot. ut supra. (p. 701) Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 2. c. 7. Plin. l. 11. c. 39. y Travels, part 1. c. 72. z Dampier’s Voyages, vol. 2. part 2. p. 105. a Heliodor. Ethiop. Hist. l. 9. c. 18. b Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 39. Vid. Vossium in Melam. de Situ Orbis, l. 1. c. 5. p. 28.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(16) In the navel.Rather, in the sinews, or muscles.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

16. Navel Sinews; “The loins and the belly are mentioned because they immediately call up to the imagination the form of the beast’s huge circumference, and of the mighty pillar-like feet, the whole assuming a wonderful and almost quadrangular aspect.” Schlottman.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments