Job 41:15
His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.
His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. This is notoriously true of the crocodile, whose back and tail are covered with scales, which are in a measure impenetrable and invincible: which all writers concerning it, and travellers that have seen it, agree in; See Gill on "Ezekiel 29:4"; but the skin of the whale is smooth; the outward skin is thin, like parchment, and is easily pulled off with the hand; and its under skin, though an inch thick, is never stiff nor tough, but soft {d}: though, if Nearchus {e} is to be credited, he reports, that one was seen fifty cubits long, with a scaly skin all over it a cubit thick; and such, it is said, were by a storm brought into our river Trent some years ago, and cast ashore, which had scales upon their backs very hard, as large and thick as one of our shillings {f}. But Aben Ezra interprets this of the teeth of the leviathan, and in which he is followed by Hasaeus; which are strong like a shield, as the words used signify; so Mr. Broughton,
"the strong shields have pride:''
but then this is as applicable, or more so, to the scales of the crocodile; which are so close as if they were sealed together, and are like a shield, its defence, and in which it prides itself.
{d} Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 146, 147, 152.
{e} Apud Arrian. in Indicis.
{f} Vid. Wesley's Dissertations on Job, dissert. 38. p. 290.