41:18 Its snorting throws out flashes of light;
its eyes are like the red glow 1 of dawn.
41:19 Out of its mouth go flames, 2
sparks of fire shoot forth!
41:20 Smoke streams from its nostrils
as from a boiling pot over burning 3 rushes.
41:21 Its breath sets coals ablaze
and a flame shoots from its mouth.
41:22 Strength lodges in its neck,
and despair 4 runs before it.
1 tn Heb “the eyelids,” but it represents the early beams of the dawn as the cover of night lifts.
2 sn For the animal, the image is that of pent-up breath with water in a hot steam jet coming from its mouth, like a stream of fire in the rays of the sun. The language is hyperbolic, probably to reflect the pagan ideas of the dragon of the deep in a polemical way – they feared it as a fire breathing monster, but in reality it might have been a steamy crocodile.
3 tn The word “burning” is supplied. The Syriac and Vulgate have “a seething and boiling pot” (reading אֹגֵם [’ogem] for אַגְמֹן [’agmon]). This view is widely accepted.
4 tn This word, דְּאָבָה (dÿ’avah) is a hapax legomenon. But the verbal root means “to languish; to pine.” A related noun talks of dejection and despair in Deut 28:65. So here “despair” as a translation is preferable to “terror.”