Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 41:5
Wilt thou play with him as [with] a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
5. Wilt thou make a pet thing of him? The commentators quote Catullus, passer, delici me puell.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? – A bird that is tamed. The art of taming birds was doubtless early practiced, and they were kept for amusement. But the leviathan could not thus be tamed.
Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? – For their amusement. For such purposes doubtless, birds were caught and caged. There is great force in this question, on the supposition that the crocodile is intended. Nothing could be more incongruous than the idea of securing so rough and unsightly a monster for the amusement of tender and delicate females.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. Wilt thou play with him] Is he such a creature as thou canst tame; and of which thou canst make a pet, and give as a plaything to thy little girls? naarotheycha; probably alluding to the custom of catching birds, tying a string to their legs, and giving them to children to play with; a custom execrable as ancient, and disgraceful as modern.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
As with a bird; as children play with little birds kept in cages, or tied with strings, which they do at their pleasure, and without any fear?
For thy maidens; for thy little daughters; which he mentions rather than little sons, because such are most subject to fear.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. a bird?that is, tamed.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Wilt thou play with him as [with] a bird?…. In the hand or cage: leviathan plays in the sea, but there is no playing with him by land, Ps 104:26;
or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? or young girls, as Mr. Broughton renders it; tie him in a string, as birds are for children to play with? Now, though crocodiles are very pernicious to children, and often make a prey of them when they approach too near the banks of the Nile, or whenever they have an opportunity of seizing them k; yet there is an instance of the child of an Egyptian woman that was brought up with one, and used to play with it l, though, when grown up, was killed by it; but no such instance can be given of the whale of any sort.
k Aelian. l. 10. c. 21. l Maxim. Tyr. Sermon. 38.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
5. As with a bird Catullus (ii, 1) speaks of “the sparrow, the delight of my girl.” Generically, the crocodile was probably the most untamable of animals, and yet even they have now and then been tamed to do the will of man. A Roman statue now in the British Museum represents an Egyptian tumbler performing on the back of a crocodile, as exhibited in the theatre at Rome. See note on Job 3:8; and Sharpe’s Bible Texts, page 96.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 41:5 Wilt thou play with him as [with] a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
Ver. 5. Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? ] Shall he make thee sport, as those poor birds that serve as pastime for little children? Or as the foolish Emperor Honorius delighted in his bird Roma (so he called it), at the loss whereof, when the city was taken by the Vandals, he grieved more than at all the rest? Indignum sane, regem aves praeferre viribus, saith the divine chronologer.
Wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
play: Jdg 16:25-30
bind: Job 28:11
Reciprocal: Job 39:10 – General Psa 104:26 – to play