We've got a Job (41) to do, AP.

In a lot of ways, a "stray" (i.e. carefully curated) extract (gathered by the painstaking burrower and grub-worm and poor devil of a Sub-Sub), set the tone for the entire novel.  What Ahab does in chasing and seeking the life of Moby Dick takes on epic implications set against the back drop of Job 41. 

Job 41 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

41 [a] “Can you draw out Leviathan[b] with a fishhook,
    or press down its tongue with a cord?
2 Can you put a rope in its nose,
    or pierce its jaw with a hook?
3 Will it make many supplications to you?
    Will it speak soft words to you?
4 Will it make a covenant with you
    to be taken as your servant forever?
5 Will you play with it as with a bird,
    or will you put it on leash for your girls?
6 Will traders bargain over it?
    Will they divide it up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill its skin with harpoons,
    or its head with fishing spears?
8 Lay hands on it;
    think of the battle; you will not do it again!

This particular passage comes at the end of the book of Job, perhaps the most Old Testament of all Old Testament books.  In it, God tests the faith of Job (on a bet with the devil, no less) by taking EVERYTHING away from him.  Job finally challenges God.  He wants an answer to the age old question--why?

This is the question that John Milton sought to answer in Paradise Lost, as he tried (and, in my opinion, failed gloriously) to "justify the ways of God to man."  

God here in Job 41 puts Job in his place.  You are a man, Job.  Leviathan--the great sea monster, the whale--is an unconquerable beast AND it is my creation.  You can't challenge the whale.  How DARE you challenge me!

Ahab challenges the whale. 

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