Thomas Aquinas, on Job 41:23

“A path shall shine after him, he shall esteem the deep as growing old.”

“He shows then the power of the other parts of his body when he says, "the members of his flesh cling together," because of their density, which shows the consent of the members of the devil to evil. After he describes the strength of Leviathan in acting, he next treats of his power to resist. Although he can resist human power in action, he cannot resist the strength of divine action anywhere, and so first he shows what God does against him when he says, "He will send thunderbolts against him." For clearly thunderbolts frequently fall into the sea and sometimes even create danger to ships. So it is also probable that sometimes thunderbolts strike whales, and so one attributes this to God because of the grandeur and terror of this effect. So the Lord said already, "Will you send the lightening and will it go." (38:35) He then says, "and they will not be born to another place," which can have two senses. First, to show the great size of his body. For lightning usually strikes in one place and is reflected by rebounding to other places close by. But the body of Leviathan is so great that when lightning strikes it, it is not reflected from his body. In another sense this can mean the infallibility of the divine operation. Just as a skilled archer shoots the arrows in a direct line so that he only strikes the target, so when God wants to send forth lightning bolts like arrows against Leviathan or any other creature, they only go to the place where he releases them, as Wisdom says, "Bolts of lightning will go directly to their goal." (5:22) By this he describes the divine scourges, which God sends against the devil and his members in such a way that they are not born to others. For if sometimes the good are scourged by God with temporal adversities, nevertheless, he permits this for the glory of the saints and the greater condemnation of the devil and his evil ones.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.