Leviathan
Notes
Transcript
Handout
What is Leviathan?
1 “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord?
2 Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words?
4 Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever?
5 Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls?
6 Will traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?
8 Lay your hands on him; remember the battle—you will not do it again!
9 Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him.
10 No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?
11 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.
12 “I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame.
13 Who can strip off his outer garment? Who would come near him with a bridle?
14 Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror.
15 His back is made of rows of shields, shut up closely as with a seal.
16 One is so near to another that no air can come between them.
17 They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated.
18 His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.
19 Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth.
20 Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
21 His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth.
22 In his neck abides strength, and terror dances before him.
23 The folds of his flesh stick together, firmly cast on him and immovable.
24 His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone.
25 When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid; at the crashing they are beside themselves.
26 Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail, nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin.
27 He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood.
28 The arrow cannot make him flee; for him, sling stones are turned to stubble.
29 Clubs are counted as stubble; he laughs at the rattle of javelins.
30 His underparts are like sharp potsherds; he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire.
31 He makes the deep boil like a pot; he makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 Behind him he leaves a shining wake; one would think the deep to be white-haired.
33 On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear.
34 He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride.”
There are four names for this kind of creature in the OT: Leviathan, Rahab, Tannin, and Tehom, also know as Tiamat.
The Greek translates most of these as “Drakōn” in the LXX, which is where we get the word for dragon.
How does Scripture and Second Temple Literature develop these beasts?
Let’s take a look at the OT passages for Leviathan: Job 41; Job 3:8; Psalm 74:14; Psalm 104:26; Isaiah 27:1.
8 Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
25 Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.
1 In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Let’s look at Leviathan in prebiblical text of Ugaritic Poetry.
1–4 “When you killed Litan, the Fleeing Serpent,
Annihilated the Twisty Serpent,
The Potentate with Seven Heads,
The heavens grew hot, they withered.
Let’s look at Leviathan in Second Temple Literature.
1 Enoch 60:6-9
6 And when this day arrives—and the power, the punishment, and the judgment, which the Lord of the Spirits has prepared for those who do not worship the righteous judgment, for those who deny the righteous judgment, and for those who take his name in vain—it will become a day of covenant for the elect and inquisition for the sinners.”
7 On that day, two monsters will be parted—one monster, a female named Leviathan, in order to dwell in the abyss of the ocean over the fountains of water; 8 and (the other), a male called Behemoth, which holds his chest in an invisible desert whose name is Dundayin, east of the garden of Eden, wherein the elect and the righteous ones dwell, wherein my grandfather was taken, the seventh from Adam, the first man whom the Lord of the Spirits created.
2 Baruch 29:4
And Behemoth will reveal itself from its place, and Leviathan will come from the sea, the two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation and which I shall have kept until that time. And they will be nourishment for all who are left.
2 Esdras 6:49-52.
49 Then didst thou preserve two living creatures, the one thou calledst Behemoth, and the other thou calledst Leviathan:
50 and thou didst separate the one from the other: for the seventh part, namely, where the water was gathered together, might not hold them both.
51 Unto Behemoth thou gavest one part, which was dried up on the third day, that he should dwell in the same, wherein are a thousand hills:
52 but unto Leviathan thou gavest the seventh part, namely, the moist; and thou hast kept them to be devoured of whom thou wilt, and when.
Apocalypse of Abraham 21:4
And I saw there the sea and its islands, and its cattle and its fish, and Leviathan and his realm and his bed and his lairs, and the world which lay upon him, and his motions and the destruction he caused the world.
Apocalypse of Abraham 22:4-11
And I looked at the picture, and my eyes ran to the side of the garden of Eden. 5 And I saw there a man very great in height and terrible in breadth, incomparable in aspect, entwined with a woman who was also equal to the man in aspect and size. 6 And they were standing under a tree of Eden, and the fruit of the tree was like the appearance of a bunch of grapes of the vine. 7 And behind the tree was standing (something) like a dragon in form, but having hands and feet like a man’s, on his back six wings on the right and six on the left. 8 And he was holding the grapes of the tree and feeding them to the two I saw entwined with each other. 9 And I said, “Who are these two entwined with each other, or who is this between them, and what is the fruit which they are eating, Mighty One, Eternal?” 10 And he said, “This is the world of men, this is Adam and this is their thought on earth, this is Eve. 11 And he who is between them is the impiety of their behavior unto perdition, Azazel himself.”
Let’s look at Leviathan in the NT.
Revelation 12:9.
9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Revelation 13:1-2.
1 And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.
2 And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.
What is Leviathan?
Leviathan is a crocodile Ezekiel 29:3; 32:2.
Leviathan is a mythical serpent / dragon to represent evil and chaos. (See above references.)
Leviathan is a dinosaur created on the fifth day of creation with great sea creatures Genesis 1:21.
Leviathan is a dinosaur who was used to represent evil and chaos in the world and to show God defeating it once and for all.
Leviathan, then, reminds us of God’s great creative power in creating such powerful beasts as dinosaurs. It also reminds us that God will not allow chaos, or the Lord of Chaos, free reign, and he will bring them to an end.