Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 41:27
He esteemeth iron as straw, [and] brass as rotten wood.
He esteemeth iron as straw – He regards instruments made of iron and brass as if they were straw or rotten wood. That is, they make no impression on him. This will agree better with the crocodile than any other animal. So hard is his skin, that a musket-ball will not penetrate it; see numerous quotations proving the hardness of the skin of the crooodile, in Bochart.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
He neither fears nor feels the blows of the one more than of the other.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
27. iron . . . brassnamely,weapons.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He esteemeth iron as straw,…. You may as well cast a straw at him as a bar of iron; it will make no impression on his steeled back, which is as a coat of mail to him; so Eustathius affirms d that the sharpest iron is rebounded and blunted by him;
[and] brass as rotten wood; or steel, any instrument made of it, though ever so strong or piercing.
d Apud ibid. (Bochard. Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 17. col. 785.)
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
27. He esteemeth iron as straw An expression some suppose to refer to the enormous power of the crocodile’s snap. Kitto cites a case which occurred in Ceylon, in which an enraged alligator bit the barrel of a gun completely in two. On the contrary, the text describes the crocodile’s contemptuous disregard of the missiles employed by the ancients in their assaults upon him.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 41:27 He esteemeth iron as straw, [and] brass as rotten wood.
Ver. 27. He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood ] He makes nothing of anything that shall be done against him. Bears and lions may be wounded with hunting weapons; other fishes with eel spears, and the like: not so the whale, or not so easily.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 41:27-28. He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood He neither fears, nor feels, the blows of the one more than of the other. The arrow cannot make him flee Hebrew, the son of the bow, as it is elsewhere called, the son of the quiver, Lam 3:13; the quiver being, as it were, the mother, or womb, that bears it, and the bow as the father that begets it, or sendeth it forth. Sling-stones Great stones cast out of slings, which have a great force and efficacy, 2Ch 26:14; are turned with him into stubble Hurt him no more than a blow with a little stubble. Heath renders this clause, He throweth about sling-stones like stubble; and Houbigant, Sling-stones are no more to him than stubble. An extraordinary instance of the strength of a crocodile is related by Maillet. I saw one, says he, twelve feet long, which had not eaten any thing for thirty-five days, having had its mouth tied close during that interval, which, from a single blow from its tail, overturned five or six men together, with a bale of coffee, as easily as I could overturn six men at a game of draughts. What force then must one of twenty feet long have in its full strength, and not weakened by such a fast? Thevenot also speaks of one that he had stripped of his skin, and says, that it was so strong, though but eight feet in length, that after they had turned him upon his back, and four persons stood upon him with both their feet, while they were cutting open his belly, he moved himself with so much force as to throw them off with violence. See Maillets Description of Egypt, page 33, and Thevenot, part 2. page 72.