the mouth (as the means of blowing) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
go
יַהֲלֹ֑כוּya.ha.Lo.khu
H1980
to walk (in a great variety of applications · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
lamps
לַפִּידִ֣יםla.pi.Dim
H3940
a flambeau · noun, common masculine plural absolute
sparks
כִּיד֥וֹדֵיki.Do.dei
H3590
properly · noun, common masculine plural construct
fire
אֵ֝֗שׁ'Esh
H784
fire (literally or figuratively) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
out
יִתְמַלָּֽטוּyit.ma.La.tu
H4422
properly · verb, hithpael imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 18:8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 41:11–end
God, having in the foregoing verses shown Job how unable he was to deal with the leviathan, here sets forth his own power in that massy mighty creature. Here is,
I. God's sovereign dominion and independency laid down, Job 41:11. 1. That he is indebted to none of his creatures. If any pretend he is indebted to them, let them make their demand and prove their debt, and they shall receive it in full and not by composition: "Who has prevented me?" that is, "who has laid any obligations upon me by any services he has done me? Who can pretend to be before-hand with me? If any were, I would not long be behind-hand with them; I would soon repay them." The apostle quotes this for the silencing of all…
burning lamps--"torches"; namely, in respiring (Job 41:18), seem to go out.
Adam Clarke on Job 41:19
Out of his mouth go burning lamps - Dr. Young, in his paraphrase, has a sensible note on this passage: - "This is nearer the truth than at first view may be imagined. The crocodile, according to naturalists, lying long under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath long repressed is hot, and bursts out so violently, that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse does not repress his breath by any means so long, neither is he so fierce and animated; yet the most correct of poets ventures to use the same metaphor concerning him, volvit sub naribus ignem. By this I would caution against a false opinion of the boldness of Eastern metaphors, from passages ill und…
Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Which, though hyperbolical expressions, have some foundation for them in the latter; in the vast quantities of water thrown out by the whale, through its mouth or hole in its frontispiece, which in the sun may look like lamps and sparks of fire, as before observed; and especially in the "orcae", or whales with teeth, which eject in the same way an oily mucus, or the fat liquor of the brain, commonly called spermaceti, which may appear more bright and glittering. Ovid (t) says much the same of the boar as is here said of the leviathan.
(t) "Fulmen ab ore venit; frondesque adflatibus ardent". Metamorph. c. 8. Fab. 4.
The Church Fathers
I believe that all the impious teachers of immoral doctrines are properly the limbs of the dragon. What are the names, if you want to listen, of the limbs of the dragon? The mouth of the dragon can be metaphorically interpreted as the main limb, because all the dangerous speeches come from it. "From his mouth go flaming torches." From it you hear the insulting speech under the guise of Christianity, the speech vilifying the Creator, or on the other hand that openly supports the theories of Marcion, Basilides and Valentinus. Whenever they speak about the Founder of heaven and earth, whenever they assert that he does not exist and has no spiritual essence—there you will see flaming torches coming out of their mouths and sparks of fire leaping up. Therefore, let us preserve ourselves without deliberating those impious theories, so that those flaming torches may never burn us and sparks of fire may never touch us.
Out of his mouth proceed lamps. As kindled torches of fire. 58. For those who look forward are called his 'eyes,' but those who preach, his 'mouth.' But lamps proceed from this 'mouth,' because they inflame the minds of their hearers to the love of misbelief, and from seeming to shine by wisdom, they doubtless thence burn with wickedness. But what kind of light their wisdom is, is shewn, when it is immediately subjoined, As kindled torches of fire. 59. Behold the hypocrisy of those is now plainly described, whose preaching is compared to lamps of torches. For when a torch is lighted, it has a sweet scent, but a dismal light. And so because these preachers of Antichrist claim to themselves a show of sanctity, but yet practise works of iniquity, the smell, as it were, which they emit is pleasant, but the light they give is dark. For they smell sweetly through their pretence of righteousness, but burn gloomily by their perpetration of iniquity. The malice of their hypocrisy John sums up in a brief description in the Apocalypse, saying; I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, having two horns like a lamb's, and he spake as a dragon. [Rev. 13, 11] He had spoken indeed of the first beast, that is, Antichrist, in a former description; after whom this other beast is said to have also come up, because the multitude of his preachers after him boasts in his earthly power. For to come up from the earth is to boast in earthly glory. And it has two horns like a lamb, because, through his pretended sanctity, he falsely asserts that that wisdom and conduct exist in him, which the Lord truly possessed in Himself in a special manner. But because under the appearance of a lamb he infuses into his reprobate hearers the poison of serpents, it is there rightly subjoined; And he spake as a dragon. If this beast therefore, that is, the multitude of preachers, were to speak openly as a dragon, he would not appear like a lamb. But he assumes the appearance of a lamb, in order to perform the works of a dragon. Both of which points are here expressed by lamps of torches; because they both burn mistily by their malicious doings, and smell, as it were, sweetly, by the hypocrisy of their life. 60. But we must not suppose that the preachers of Antichrist will appear then only, and that now they take no part in the deception of men. For even now, before he appears himself, some…
Dictionary and topics
Leviathan · Nature and habits of — Nature and habits of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on Job 41:18-21
18 His sneezing sendeth forth light,
And his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn;
19 Out of his mouth proceed flames,
Sparks of fire escape from him;
20 Out of his nostrils goeth forth smoke
Like a seething pot and caldron;
21 His breath kindleth coals,
And flames go forth out of his mouth.
That the crocodile delights to sun itself on the land, and then turns its open jaws to the sunny side, most Nile travellers since Herodotus have had an opportunity of observing;
(Note: Dieterici, Reisebilder, i. 194: "We very often saw the animal lying in the sand, its jaws wide open and turned towards the warm sunbeams, while little birds, like the slender white water-wagtail, march quietly about in t…
Unlike the peaceful Behemoth (40:15-24), Leviathan was menacing (see also 3:8; Pss 74:14; 104:26; Isa 27:1). Most commentators identify Leviathan with the crocodile, with its terrible jaws (Job 41:14) and armored hide (41:15-17, 23), thrashing the water (41:31-32). But Leviathan is a fire-breathing dragon (41:18-21) that wraps its coils around the sun to cause an eclipse (3:8-9). The background for Leviathan is the seven-headed sea monster that represents chaos in ancient Near Eastern mythology. In the biblical record, this unruly maritime monster is a frequent biblical image for chaos and wickedness, whose head the Lord crushes (Ps 74:14; Isa 27:1; cp. Job 9:13; 26:12; Ps 89:9-10; Isa 30:7;…