Verse 12
12. Am I a sea God sets bounds to the sea, and may thus be said to watch over it. The sea was fancied by the Hebrew poet to be in a state of rebellion, and as calling for divine restraint Jeremiah 31:35, etc. Job is not conscious of a similar revolt against the Divine Majesty, and hence he remonstrates against being treated like some wild “monster,” a term that Virgil applies to the ocean. AEneid, 5:849. Some suppose Job refers to the river Nile, which Isaiah (Isaiah 19:5) calls a sea; while Homer calls it ωκωανος , the ocean. The monster, then, would be the crocodile, against which men set guards. The monster (“whale”) Job speaks of bears a name ( תנין , Tannin) similar to that in the Egyptian ritual tanem, which designated a horrible serpent, the enemy of light and life. Bunsen gives the snake as one of the hieroglyphic signs for the letter “T.” Egypt’s Place, etc., 1:568. Tiamat appears in the Assyrian documents as the name of the dragon mistress at Chaos, answering to Thalatth in the fragments of Berosus. SMITH’S Chaldean Account, etc., pages 14, 99. Notwithstanding, it is more natural to suppose that Job refers to the sea, with its sublime restlessness, ever chafing against its shores. Such a figure would naturally suggest itself to one “full of tossings to and fro.” Job 7:4.
Whale Tannin. Sea monster. Species not defined. See above.
Watch A bold conception. The pains and sorrows with which God visits man are heaven’s watch over him.
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