Jaw, Jawbone, Jaw Teeth
Jaw, Jawbone, Jaw Teeth
jo, jobon (, leh, cheek (bone), jaw (bone)): In Job 41:2, the Revised Version (British and American) gives pierce his jaw through with a hook for the King James Version bore his jaw through with a thorn (see HOOK; LEVIATHAN). Psa 22:15, My tongue cleaveth to my jaws (malkoah), is descriptive of the effect of a fever or physical torture, a dryness and a horrible clamminess. , Malkohaym is an ancient dual form meaning the two jaws, and, metaphorically, , malkoah indicates that which is caught between the jaws, booty, prey, including captives (Num 31:11, Num 31:26, Num 31:32; Isa 49:24 f).
Figurative: (1) Of the power of the wicked, with a reference to Divine restraint and discipline: I brake the jaws (Hebrew great teeth) of the unrighteous (Job 29:17; Pro 30:14); compare Psa 58:6, Break out the great teeth (maltaoth, jaw teeth) of the young lions, O Yahweh. Let the wicked be deprived of their ability for evil; let them at least be disabled from mischief. Septuagint reads God shall break, etc. (Compare Edmund Prys’s Metrical Paraphrase of the Psalms, in the place cited.) A bridle … in the jaws of the peoples (Isa 30:28; compare 2Ki 19:28) is descriptive of the ultimate check of the Assyrian power at Jerusalem, as when a bridle or lasso is thrown upon the jaws of a wild animal when you wish to catch and tame him (G.A. Smith Isa, I, 235). Compare Eze 29:4 (concerning Pharaoh); Eze 38:4 (concerning Gog), I will put hooks in (into) thy jaws. (2) Of human labor and trials, with a reference to the Divine gentleness: I was to them as they that lift up the yoke on their jaws (Hos 11:4), or ‘take the yoke off their jaws,’ as the humane driver eased the yoke with his hands or ‘lifted it forward from neck to the jaws’; or it may perhaps refer to the removal of the yoke in the evening, when work is over.
Jawbone (Jdg 15:15). See RAMATH-LEHI.