Out of his mouth go burning lamps “This,” says Dr. Young, “is nearer truth than at first view may be imagined. The crocodile, says the naturalists, lying long under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath, long repressed, is hot, and bursts out so violently that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse suppresses not his breath, by any means, so long, neither is he so fierce and animated; yet the most correct of poets venture to use the same metaphor concerning him. By this I would caution against a false opinion of the eastern boldness, (the boldness of their metaphors,) from passages in them ill understood.” We add the doctor's paraphrase on these verses:
“His bulk is charged with such a furious soul,
That clouds of smoke from his spread nostrils roll,
As from a furnace; and, when roused his ire,
Fate issues from his jaws in streams of fire.”
Smoke, as out of a caldron Hebrew, אגמן, agmon, sometimes rendered bulrush, and, Job 41:2, put for a hook; but the word likewise signifies a pool, or stagnating water, and is here rendered a caldron, because a caldron sends forth a great smoke, as a pool doth vapours. By a like figure, the great brazen laver, in the temple, was called a sea, on account of the great quantity of water which it contained. His breath kindleth coals A hyperbolical expression, signifying only extraordinary heat.