[His] scales [are his] pride, shut up together [as with] a close seal. This is notoriously true of the crocodile, whose back and tail are covered with scales, which are in a measure impenetrable and invincible: which all writers concerning it, and travellers that have seen it, agree in; Ezekiel 29:4; but the skin of the whale is smooth; the outward skin is thin, like parchment, and is easily pulled off with the hand; and its under skin, though an inch thick, is never stiff nor tough, but soft d: though, if Nearchus e is to be credited, he reports, that one was seen fifty cubits long, with a scaly skin all over it a cubit thick; and such, it is said, were by a storm brought into our river Trent some years ago, and cast ashore, which had scales upon their backs very hard, as large and thick as one of our shillings f. But Aben Ezra interprets this of the teeth of the leviathan, and in which he is followed by Hasaeus; which are strong like a shield, as the words used signify; so Mr. Broughton,
"the strong shields have pride:''
but then this is as applicable, or more so, to the scales of the crocodile; which are so close as if they were sealed together, and are like a shield, its defence, and in which it prides itself.
d Voyage to Spitzbergen, p. 146, 147, 152. e Apud Arrian. in Indicis. f Vid. Wesley's Dissertations on Job, dissert. 38. p. 290.