(14) Who can open the doors of his face?--i.e., his mouth. Round about his teeth is terror.

Verse 14. - Who can open the doors of his face? Who can make him open his huge, gaping jaws, if he chooses to keep them shut? Who would dare to do so? His teeth are terrible round about. The crocodile has "two rows of sharply pointed teeth, thirty or more on each side" (Russell's 'Ancient and Modern Egypt,' p. 460). They are "so formed and disposed as to tear their prey rather than masticate it" ('Dict. Universelle des Sciences,' p. 447). The voracity of the full-grown crocodile is great; and he will not scruple to attack and devour men, if they come in his way. The natives of Upper Egypt have a wholesome terror of him.

41:1-34 Concerning Leviathan. - The description of the Leviathan, is yet further to convince Job of his own weakness, and of God's almighty power. Whether this Leviathan be a whale or a crocodile, is disputed. The Lord, having showed Job how unable he was to deal with the Leviathan, sets forth his own power in that mighty creature. If such language describes the terrible force of Leviathan, what words can express the power of God's wrath? Under a humbling sense of our own vileness, let us revere the Divine Majesty; take and fill our allotted place, cease from our own wisdom, and give all glory to our gracious God and Saviour. Remembering from whom every good gift cometh, and for what end it was given, let us walk humbly with the Lord.Who can open the doors of his face?.... Of his mouth, the jaws thereof, which are like a pair of folding doors: the jaws of a crocodile have a prodigious opening. Peter Martyr (u) speaks of one, whose jaws opened seven feet broad; and Leo Africanus (w) affirms he saw some, whose jaws, when opened, would hold a whole cow. To the wideness of the jaws of this creature Martial (x) alludes; and that the doors or jaws of the mouth of the whale are of a vast extent will be easily believed by those who suppose that was the fish which swallowed Jonah;

his teeth are terrible round about; this may seem to make against the whale, the common whale having none; though the "ceti dentati" are a sort of whales that have many teeth in the lower jaw, white, large, solid, and terrible (y). Olaus Magnus (z) speaks of some that have jaws twelve or fourteen feet long; and teeth of six, eight, and twelve feet; and there is a sort called "trumpo", having teeth resembling those of a mill (a). In the spermaceti whale are rows of fine ivory teeth in each jaw, about five or six inches long (b). But of the crocodile there is no doubt; which has two rows of teeth, very sharp and terrible, and to the number of sixty (c).

(u) Decad. 5. c. 9. (w) Descript. Africae, l. 9. p. 763. So Sandys's Travels, l. 2. p. 78. Edit. 5. (x) Epigram. l. 3. cp. 64. (y) Vid. Plin. l. 9. c. 5, 6. and Philosoph. Transact. vol. 3. p. 544. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 848. (z) De Ritu Gent. Septent. l. 21. c. 8. (a) Philosoph. Transact. abridged, vol. 2. p. 847, 848. (b) Philosoph. Transact. abridged, vol. 7. part 3. p. 425. (c) Aelian. l. 10. c. 21.