Not P but Moby-Dick (62)

Tue Jan 30 04:17:10 UTC 2024

Pretty sure that “canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook?” is from the
Book of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Job 41:

“

Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
    or tie down its tongue with a rope?
2 Can you put a cord through its nose
    or pierce its jaw with a hook?
3 Will it keep begging you for mercy?
    Will it speak to you with gentle words?
4 Will it make an agreement with you
    for you to take it as your slave for life?
5 Can you make a pet of it like a bird
    or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?
6 Will traders barter for it?
    Will they divide it up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill its hide with harpoons
    or its head with fishing spears?
8 If you lay a hand on it,
    you will remember the struggle and never do it again!
9 Any hope of subduing it is false;
    the mere sight of it is overpowering.
10 No one is fierce enough to rouse it.
    Who then is able to stand against me?
11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
    Everything under heaven belongs to me.

12

The Book of Job is (imho) kinda grim.

The Devil makes a bet with God to mess with Job so God kills off his family
-

Cutting to the chase -
Job waxes wroth with God, and God finally answers him, like “who are you to
question me”

God goes on about the mighty Leviathan (huge sea-dwelling monster) & how
powerless people are against it - the lesson being that God is even more so.

It’s quite ironic that these mariners are doing what God is quoted as
saying is not doable.

I think I’m on the right track here.
Many gems of Scriptural references stud _Moby-Dick_  & this one I think
needs explicit context to make it understandable in a translation

Unlike some Biblical quotes which are more or less “wisdom of the ages”
this one is unique in dwelling on a huge sea-monster

It even goes on further to say -

12 “I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs,
    its strength and its graceful form.
13 Who can strip off its outer coat?
    Who can penetrate its double coat of armor[b
<https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2041&version=NIV#fen-NIV-13902b>
]?
14 Who dares open the doors of its mouth,
    ringed about with fearsome teeth?
15 Its back has[c
<https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2041&version=NIV#fen-NIV-13904c>
] rows of shields
    tightly sealed together;
16 each is so close to the next
    that no air can pass between.
17 They are joined fast to one another;
    they cling together and cannot be parted.
18 Its snorting throws out flashes of light;
    its eyes are like the rays of dawn.
19 Flames stream from its mouth;
    sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke pours from its nostrils
    as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.
21 Its breath sets coals ablaze,
    and flames dart from its mouth.
22 Strength resides in its neck;
    dismay goes before it.
23 The folds of its flesh are tightly joined;
    they are firm and immovable.
24 Its chest is hard as rock,
    hard as a lower millstone.
25 When it rises up, the mighty are terrified;
    they retreat before its thrashing.
26 The sword that reaches it has no effect,
    nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
27 Iron it treats like straw
    and bronze like rotten wood.
28 Arrows do not make it flee;
    slingstones are like chaff to it.
29 A club seems to it but a piece of straw;
    it laughs at the rattling of the lance.
30 Its undersides are jagged potsherds,
    leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
31 It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
    and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 It leaves a glistening wake behind it;
    one would think the deep had white hair.
33 Nothing on earth is its equal—
    a creature without fear.
34 It looks down on all that are haughty;
    it is king over all that are proud.”

Then Job humbles himself -

“

42 Then Job replied to the Lord:

2 “I know that you can do all things;
    no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
    Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me to know.

4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
    but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
    and repent in dust and ashes.”

On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 9:15 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> From Chapter 81:
>
> Is this the creature of whom it was once so triumphantly said—“Canst thou
> fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish-spears? The sword of
> him that layeth at him cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon:
> he esteemeth iron as straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are
> counted as stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!” This the
> creature? this he? Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For
> with the strength of a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his
> head under the mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod’s
> fish-spears!
>
> What exactly does "Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prophets." mean
> here? What would be a more explicit paraphrase?
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>