NOTES for Job 41:11-34
The final part of the Lord's words to Job contains a vivid description of a dragon whose heat makes the depths of the sea boil. A common interpretation, however, holds that this is a crocodile: this animal, worshipped by the Egyptians, seemed to the Jews the mightiest of creatures. Most probably, the Egyptian deification of the crocodile was an important aspect for the author. Verse 17 in the Synodal numbering, verse 25 in the King James Version, reads in the Russian Synodal translation, ‘When it [the crocodile] rises, the mighty are afraid’; with greater justification, it should read, ‘Even the gods fear its appearance.’ Thus the power of the Creator, which created the crocodile and prevails over it, extends to the pagan gods too, who are all the more as nothing before the right hand of the Almighty.
The most significant verses in chapter 41 are verses 2 and 3 in the Synodal numbering, verses 10 and 11 in the King James Version, in which the Lord proclaims that He is subject to nothing and no one in the world. Despite certain differences between translations, some of which refer part of these verses to the power of the crocodile rather than to that of the Lord, the concluding thought is entirely unambiguous. ‘Everything under heaven is Mine,’ says the Lord. Once again, it is important to note that this is an answer to Job's lament, to his grief at having been cast away from God's hand. Everything, including Job's fate, belongs to God. Nothing can resist the Creator's power that governs the world; therefore, even though everything that happened did happen in Job's life, his fate nevertheless remains in God's hands.
The Lord does not give Job a substantive answer; indeed, He does not even say that such an answer exists. One might think He could at least have said that Job was suffering because he had become a participant in God's struggle with Satan, who had slandered both God and Job. In essence, Job's role would have seemed quite honourable… But God says none of this. For the author of the Book of Job, inventing answers of this kind and putting them into the Lord's mouth would have meant trying to explain a mystery rationally, and the author is too wise for that. Thus the essence of the Lord's answer lies in the answer itself, in the fact that Job has not been forgotten by Him.