Job 40:24
Shalt thou play with him as with a bird, or tie him up for thy handmaids?
Open Job 40:24 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Numquid illudes ei quasi avi, aut ligabis eum ancillis tuis ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- παίξῃ δὲ ἐν αὐτῷ ὥσπερ ὀρνέῳ, ἢ δήσεις αὐτὸν ὥσπερ στρουθίον παιδίῳ;
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Job 40:29
- הַֽתְשַׂחֶק בּ֭וֹ כַּצִּפּ֑וֹר וְ֝תִקְשְׁרֶ֗נּוּ לְנַעֲרוֹתֶֽיךָ
Haydock's commentary
Handmaids? or little girls. (Calmet) Septuagint, "Wilt thou tie it like a sparrow for thy boy?" (Haydock)
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 Ambrose Concerning Repentance, Chapter XIII. They who have committed a “sin unto death” are not to be abandoned, but subjected to penance, according to St. Paul. Explanation of the phrase “Deliver unto Satan.” Satan can afflict the body, but these afflictions bring spiritual profit, showing the power of God, Who thus turns Satan's devices against himself
64. The devil is then deceived so as to wound himself with his own bite, and to arm against himself him whom he thought to weaken. So he armed holy Job the more after he wounded him, who, with his whole body covered with sores, endured indeed the bite of the devil, but felt not his poison. And so it is well said of him, “Thou shalt draw out the dragon with an hook, thou wilt play with him as with a bird, thou shalt bind him as a boy doth a sparrow, thou shalt lay thine hand upon him.”