The commentators differ widely as to the meaning of this word "leviathan." Some, as I have shown, think it means the same thing as the crooked or "winding" serpent (_vulg_.) spoken of in chapter xxvi, v. 13, where, speaking of God, it is said: "His spirit hath adorned the heavens, and his artful hand brought forth the winding serpent." Or, as the King James version has it: "By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent." By this serpent some of the commentators understand "a constellation, the devil, the leviathan." In the Septuagint he is called "the apostate dragon." The Lord sarcastically asks Job: "21. Canst thou put a ring in his nose, or bore through his jaw with a buckle? "22. Will he make many supplications to thee, or speak soft words to thee? "23. Will he make a covenant with thee, and wilt thou take him to be a servant for ever? "24. Shalt thou play with him as with a bird, or tie him up for thy handmaids? "25. Shall friends" (Septuagint, "the nations") cut him in pieces, shall merchants" (Septuagint, "the generation of the Phœnicians") "divide him?" . . (chap. xli, v. 1. Douay version.) "I will not stir him up, like one that is cruel; for who can resist my" (his?) "countenance," or, "who shall stand against me" (him?) "and live?" . . . {p. 311} "4. Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can go into the midst of his mouth? "5. Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about. "6. His body is like _molten shields_, shut close up, the scales pressing upon one another. "7. One is joined to another, and not so much as any air can come between them. "8. They stick one to another, and they hold one another fast, and shall not be separated. "9. His sneezing is like the _shining of fire_, and his eyes like the eyelids of the morning." (Syriac, "His look is brilliant." Arabic, "The apples of his eyes are fiery, and his eyes are like the brightness of the morning.") 10. _Out of his mouth go forth lamps, like torches of lighted fire_." Compare these "sneezings" or "neesings" of the King James version, and these "lamps like torches of lighted lire," with the appearance of Donati's great comet in 1858: "On the 16th of September two diverging streams of light shot out from the nucleus across the coma, and, having separated to about the extent of its diameter, they turned back abruptly and streamed out in the tail. _Luminous substance_ could be distinctly seen _rushing out from the nucleus_, and then flowing back into the tail. M. Rosa described the streams of light as resembling _long hair brushed upward from the forehead_, and then allowed to fall back on each side of the head."[1] "11. _Out of his nostrils goeth forth smoke_, like that of a pot heated and boiling." (King James's version has it, "as out of a seething pot or caldron.") "12. His breath _kindleth coals, and a flame cometh forth out of his mouth_.