Job 41:4-6 New English Translation
4 Will it make a pact[a] with you,
so you could take it[b] as your slave for life?
5 Can you play[c] with it, like a bird,
or tie it on a leash[d] for your girls?
6 Will partners[e] bargain[f] for it?
Will they divide it up[g] among the merchants?
Footnotes
- Job 41:4 tn Heb “will he cut a covenant.”
- Job 41:4 tn The imperfect verb serves to express what the covenant pact would cover, namely, “that you take.”
- Job 41:5 tn The Hebrew verb is שָׂחַק (sakhaq, “to sport; to trifle; to play,” Ps 104:26).
- Job 41:5 tn The idea may include putting Leviathan on a leash. D. W. Thomas suggested on the basis of an Arabic cognate that it could be rendered “tie him with a string like a young sparrow” (“Job XL 29b: Text and Translation,” VT 14 [1964]: 114-16).
- Job 41:6 tn The word חָבַּר (khabbar) is a hapax legomenon, but the meaning is “to associate” since it is etymologically related to the verb “to join together.” The idea is that fishermen usually work in companies or groups, and then divide up the catch when they come ashore—which involves bargaining.
- Job 41:6 tn The word כָּרַה (karah) means “to sell.” With the preposition עַל (ʿal, “upon”) it has the sense “to bargain over something.”
- Job 41:6 tn The verb means “to cut up; to divide up” in the sense of selling the dead body (see Exod 21:35). This will be between them and the merchants (כְּנַעֲנִים, kenaʿanim).
New English Translation (NET)
NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.