Lectionary Calendar
Friday, July 18th, 2025
the Week of Proper 10 / Ordinary 15
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Read the Bible

THE MESSAGE

Job 41:5

This verse is not available in the MSG!

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Birds;   God;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Leviathan;  

Dictionaries:

- Fausset Bible Dictionary - Bird;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Chaos;   Leviathan;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Birds;   Cage;   Games;   Leviathan;   Maid;   Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia - Bird-cages;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Birds;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Can you play with him like a birdor put him on a leash for your girls?
Hebrew Names Version
Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls?
King James Version
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
English Standard Version
Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls?
New Century Version
Can you make a pet of Leviathan as you would a bird or put it on a leash for your girls?
New English Translation
Can you play with it, like a bird, or tie it on a leash for your girls?
Amplified Bible
"Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him [and put him on a leash] for your maidens?
New American Standard Bible
"Will you play with him as with a bird, And tie him down for your young girls?
World English Bible
Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls?
Geneva Bible (1587)
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bynd him for thy maydes?
Legacy Standard Bible
Will you play with it as with a bird,Or will you bind it for your young women?
Berean Standard Bible
Can you pet him like a bird or put him on a leash for your maidens?
Contemporary English Version
Can it be tied by the leg like a pet bird for little girls?
Complete Jewish Bible
Who can strip off his [scaly] garment? Who can enter his jaws?
Darby Translation
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird, and wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
Easy-to-Read Version
Will you play with Leviathan as you would play with a bird? Will you put a rope on him so that your girls can play with him?
George Lamsa Translation
Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you keep him as a pet for your children?
Good News Translation
Will you tie him like a pet bird, like something to amuse your servant women?
Lexham English Bible
Will you play with it as with birds and put it on a leash for your girls?
Literal Translation
Will you play with him as with a bird; or will you tie him up for your maidens?
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Wilt thou take thy pastyne wt him as with a byrde, or geue him vnto thy maydens,
American Standard Version
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
Bible in Basic English
Will you make sport with him, as with a bird? or put him in chains for your young women?
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Who can uncover the face of his garment? Who shall come within his double bridle?
King James Version (1611)
Wilt thou play with him as with a birde? wilt thou binde him for thy maydens?
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Wylt thou take thy pastime with him as with a birde, wilt thou binde him for thy maydens?
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Who will open the doors of his face? terror is round about his teeth.
English Revised Version
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Whether thou schalt scorne hym as a brid, ethir schalt bynde hym to thin handmaidis?
Update Bible Version
Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your maidens?
Webster's Bible Translation
Wilt thou play with him as [with] a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
New King James Version
Will you play with him as with a bird, Or will you leash him for your maidens?
New Living Translation
Can you make it a pet like a bird, or give it to your little girls to play with?
New Life Bible
Will you play with him as if he were a bird? Or will you put him on a rope for your young women?
New Revised Standard
Will you play with it as with a bird, or will you put it on leash for your girls?
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Wilt thou sport with him, as with a little bird? Or wilt thou bind him, for thy maidens?
Douay-Rheims Bible
(40-24) Shalt thou play with him as with a bird, or tie him up for thy handmaids?
Revised Standard Version
Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on leash for your maidens?
Young's Literal Translation
Dost thou play with him as a bird? And dost thou bind him for thy damsels?
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Will you play with him as with a bird, Or will you bind him for your maidens?

Contextual Overview

1 "Or can you pull in the sea beast, Leviathan, with a fly rod and stuff him in your creel? Can you lasso him with a rope, or snag him with an anchor? Will he beg you over and over for mercy, or flatter you with flowery speech? Will he apply for a job with you to run errands and serve you the rest of your life? Will you play with him as if he were a pet goldfish? Will you make him the mascot of the neighborhood children? Will you put him on display in the market and have shoppers haggle over the price? Could you shoot him full of arrows like a pin cushion, or drive harpoons into his huge head? If you so much as lay a hand on him, you won't live to tell the story. What hope would you have with such a creature? Why, one look at him would do you in! If you can't hold your own against his glowering visage, how, then, do you expect to stand up to me? Who could confront me and get by with it? I'm in charge of all this—I run this universe!

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

play: Judges 16:25-30

bind: Job 28:11

Reciprocal: Job 39:10 - General Psalms 104:26 - to play

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Wilt thou play with him as [with] a bird?.... In the hand or cage: leviathan plays in the sea, but there is no playing with him by land, Psalms 104:26;

or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? or young girls, as Mr. Broughton renders it; tie him in a string, as birds are for children to play with? Now, though crocodiles are very pernicious to children, and often make a prey of them when they approach too near the banks of the Nile, or whenever they have an opportunity of seizing them k; yet there is an instance of the child of an Egyptian woman that was brought up with one, and used to play with it l, though, when grown up, was killed by it; but no such instance can be given of the whale of any sort.

k Aelian. l. 10. c. 21. l Maxim. Tyr. Sermon. 38.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? - A bird that is tamed. The art of taming birds was doubtless early practiced, and they were kept for amusement. But the leviathan could not thus be tamed.

Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? - For their amusement. For such purposes doubtless, birds were caught and caged. There is great force in this question, on the supposition that the crocodile is intended. Nothing could be more incongruous than the idea of securing so rough and unsightly a monster for the amusement of tender and delicate females.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 41:5. Wilt thou play with him — Is he such a creature as thou canst tame; and of which thou canst make a pet, and give as a plaything to thy little girls? נערותיך naarotheycha; probably alluding to the custom of catching birds, tying a string to their legs, and giving them to children to play with; a custom execrable as ancient, and disgraceful as modern.


 
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