Job 41:31
He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.
He maketh the deep to boil {k} like a pot,.... Which is all in a from through the violent agitation and motion of the waves, caused by its tossing and tumbling about; which better suits with the whale than the crocodile, whose motion in the water is not so vehement;
He maketh the sea like a pot of ointment; this also seems to make against the crocodile, which is a river fish, and is chiefly in the Nile. Lakes indeed are sometimes called seas, in which crocodiles are found; yea, they are also said to be in the seas, Ezekiel 32:2; and Pliny {l} speaks of them as common to the land, river, and sea; and the Nile is in the Alcoran {m} called the sea, and its ancient name was "Oceames" with the Egyptians, that is, in Greek, "ocean", as Diodorus Siculus {n} affirms; and so it is thought to be the Egyptian sea in
Isaiah 11:15. It is observed that they leave a sweet scent behind them; thus Peter Martyr {o}, in his account of the voyages of Columbus in the West Indies, says, they sometimes met with crocodiles, which, when they fled or took water, they left a very sweet savour behind them, sweeter than musk or castoreum. But this does not come up to the expression here of making the sea like a pot of ointment; but the sperm of the whale comes much nearer to it, which is of a fat oily nature, and like ointment, and which the whale sometimes throws out in great abundance, so that the sea is covered with it; whole pails full may be taken out of the water; it swims upon the sea like fat; abundance of it is seen in calm weather, so that it makes the sea all foul and slimy {p}: and there are a sort of birds called "mallemuck", which fly in great numbers and feed upon it {q}. I cannot but remark what the bishop of Bergen observes {r} of the sea serpent, that its excrements float on the water in summertime like fat slime.
{k} "Fervetque----aequor". Virgil. Georgic. l. 1. v. 327.
{l} Nat. Hist. l. 32. c. 11.
{m} Schultens in Job, xiv. 11.
{n} Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 17.
{o} Decad. 3. l. 4.
{p} Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 148, 149.
{q} Vid. Scheuchzer. ut supra, (vol. 4.) p. 852. & Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 167.
{r} Pantoppidan's History of Norway, part 2. p. 204.