John Gill Commentary Job 41:31

"He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: He maketh the sea like a pot of ointment." — Job 41:31 (ASV)

He makes the deep to boil ^F11 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 makes 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

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FOOTNOTES:

• F11: "Fervetque----aequor". Virgil. Georgic. l. 1. v. 327.
• F12: speaks of them as common to the land, river, and sea; and the Nile is in the Alcoran ^F13 called the sea, and its ancient name was "Oceames" with the Egyptians, that is, in Greek, "ocean", as Diodorus Siculus ^F14 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 ^F15 , 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 ^F16 : and there are a sort of birds called "mallemuck", which fly in great numbers and feed upon it ^F17 . I cannot but remark what the bishop of Bergen observes ^F18 of the sea serpent, that its excrements float on the water in summertime like fat slime.