Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
Ver. 16. Lo, now, his strength is in his loins] Wherein he is so strong that he can bear a wooden tower upon his back, and upon that thirty two men standing to fight therefrom. In India, where the largest elephants are, they ride upon the larger, plough with the lesser, and carry great loads and burdens with both. For which and the like purposes, totus robustissimus est superne et inferne (Junius). Howbeit God hath chiefly placed his strength, not in any offensive part (his head hath no horns, and his feet no claws, to do mischief with), but in his loins, and about his belly.
And his force is in the navel of his belly] Which must needs be very hard undergirded, when so great weight is made fast to his back. Naturalists observe, that the softest part of the elephant is his belly; and, therefore, the rhinoceros, his deadly enemy, setteth upon him there with his crooked horn whetted against a rock, and overcometh him; yet is he stronger in his belly than other creatures are in the back; and, therefore, his navel is here called navels in the plural. His skin is exceeding hard and rough, so that an arrow can hardly pierce it. Yet Eleazar, /RAPC 1Ma 6:46, rushing into the enemy's army, got under an elephant's belly (upon which he thought King Antiochus rode), and killed him, being himself crushed to death with the weight of the beast falling upon him.