Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls?
Whether this leviathan be a whale or a crocodile is a great dispute among the learned, which I will not undertake to determine; some of the particulars agree more easily to the one, others to the other; both are very strong and fierce, and the power of the Creator appears in them.
Commenting on Job 41:1-10
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird?.... In the hand or cage: leviathan plays in the sea, but there is no playing with him by land, Psa 104:26; or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? or young girls, as Mr. Broughton renders it; tie him in a string, as birds are for children to play with?
Wilt thou play with him - Is he such a creature as thou canst tame; and of which thou canst make a pet, and give as a plaything to thy little girls? נערותיך naarotheycha; probably alluding to the custom of catching birds, tying a string to their legs, and giving them to children to play with; a custom execrable as ancient, and disgraceful as modern.