Who can open the doors of his face, With his terrible teeth all around?
Parallel translations
- WEB Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror.
- KJV Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.
- BSB Who can open his jaws, ringed by his fearsome teeth?
- NASB “Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth there is terror.
- NLT Who could pry open its jaws? For its teeth are terrible!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God asks who can open Leviathan's jaws, ringed about with terrifying teeth. The creature's mouth is an image of inescapable danger.
Overview
The doors of Leviathan's face, guarded by rows of fearsome teeth, are beyond any man's power to open. The terror surrounding his teeth conveys the deadliness of the creature. As with every feature described, the point is that God made and masters what man cannot. The portrait keeps drawing Job toward humble submission to the Creator's supreme power.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Eccl 12:4and the doors shall be shut in the street; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;
- Ps 57:4My soul is among lions. I lie among those who are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.
- Prov 30:14There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and their jaws like knives, to devour the poor from the earth, and the needy from among men.
- Ps 58:6Break their teeth, God, in their mouth. Break out the great teeth of the young lions, Yahweh.
- Job 38:10marked out for it my bound, set bars and doors,
- Dan 7:7After this I saw in the night visions, and, behold, a fourth animal, awesome and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the animals that were before it; and it had ten horns.
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 41:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.