Job 41:2

Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?

Berean Standard Bible

Study note

Setting — God addresses Job in the final theophany speech (chapters 38–41), the third and last of His responses to Job's demand for a hearing. This is the closing speech, focused on Leviathan.

The words — אגמון ('agmôn, "a cord") is a hapax legomenon, occurring nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible; its rarity marks the image as deliberately singular.

The thread — The hook-in-the-nose or jaw motif recurs in Isaiah 37:29 and 2 Kings 19:28 (God hooking Assyria by the nose) and Ezekiel 29:4 (hooks in Egypt's jaws), each time turning the image of subduing a creature into a declaration of divine sovereignty over a proud nation.

Why it lands — The question is not an invitation to attempt the act but a boundary marker: the reader is placed in Job's position, unable to answer, and thereby confronted with the limits of human dominion.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Hebrew words

הֲתָשִׂ֣יםha./ta.Sim¿/ will you put אַגְמ֣וֹן'ag.Mona cord בְּאַפּ֑וֹbe./'a.P/oin/ nose/ its וּ֝בְח֗וֹחַu./ve./Cho.achand/ with/ a hook תִּקּ֥וֹבti.Kovwill you pierce?לֶֽחֱיוֹ׃le.che.y/ojaw/ its

King James Version

Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?

Cross-references

Isaiah 37:29 Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’
Ezekiel 29:4 But I will put hooks in your jaws and cause the fish of your streams to cling to your scales. I will haul you up out of your rivers, and all the fish of your streams will cling to your scales.
2 Kings 19:28 Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’
Isaiah 27:1 In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent—Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of the sea.