Job 41:18-22

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.

[41:18]  ¹ tn Heb “the eyelids,” but it represents the early beams of the dawn as the cover of night lifts.

[41:19]  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.

[41:20]  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.

[41:22]  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.”