Job 40:11
His strength is in his loins, and his force in the navel of his belly.
Open Job 40:11 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Fortitudo ejus in lumbis ejus, et virtus illius in umbilico ventris ejus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἰδοὺ δὴ ἰσχὺς αὐτοῦ ἐπ᾽ ὀσφύι, ἡ δὲ δύναμις ἐπ᾽ ὀμφαλοῦ γαστρός·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Job 40:16
- הִנֵּה נָ֣א כֹח֣וֹ בְמָתְנָ֑יו וְ֝אֹנ֗וֹ בִּשְׁרִירֵ֥י בִטְנֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
Loins. The towers were fastened here by an iron chain.
Belly. Yet it is nowhere so easily wounded, 1 Machabees vi. 45. (Pliny, viii. 20.)
Hence some would translate Hebrew, "and its pain in the belly," (Calmet) as it is only subject to an inflammation and flux; profluvium alvi. (Pliny) (Ælian xvii. 44.)
But the original rather denotes the parts of generation, which lie concealed, (Aristotle, anim. ii. 1., and v. 2.) and are styled the strength, Genesis xlix. 3., and Deuteronomy xxi. 17.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter IV. A review of the passions of gluttony and fornication and their remedies
And to make this clearer not only by a short discussion to the best of my ability, but by Scripture proof as well, gluttony and fornication, though they exist in us naturally (for sometimes they spring up without any incitement from the mind, and simply at the motion and allurement of the flesh) yet if they are to be consummated, must find an external object, and thus take effect only through bodily acts. For “every man is tempted of his own lust. Then lust when it has conceived beareth sin, and sin when it is consummated begets death.” For the first Adam could not have fallen a victim to gluttony unless he had had material food at hand, and had used it wrongly, nor could the second Adam be tempted without the enticement of some object, when it was said to Him: “If Thou art the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” And it is clear to everybody that fornication also is onl …