Job 41: Here be Dragons

Now, this chapter details a creature named leviathan, the famous partner of Behemoth. Like Behemoth, much of God's point is the majesty and power of these things, but also God's power and wisdom to create and conquer these things.

There are some similarities, but also some startling differences. For one, Leviathan is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.

So before we get into Job's account, let's get an idea of what other details God has given us about this thing.

God is the beginning and end of Leviathan. (various texts)

Psalm 104:24–30 ESV

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

Here, God is being praised for his created goodness and provision for all sorts of creatures, big and small.

Then, right in the middle, we get Leviathan!

Here, he's seen as little more than one of many sea creatures, but who is singled out as playing in the sea. But very much a real creature.

Isaiah 27:1 ESV

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.

Following the similar song in the previous chapter, this catalogs the restoration of Israel (27:13)

Here, Leviathan is anything but innocent. He is a sea serpent, a sea dragon, a demon of the depths that God will silence with his shining sword.

But, wait, why would God wage war against a sea creature? Because, here, Leviathan is anything but just a physical creature!

Psalm 74:13–14 ESV

You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

Much like Isaiah, we see these themes of God's people being vindicated and avenged by the all powerful God.

Unlike Isaiah, where God is declaring what will happen, this Psalm was written in the middle of that tragedy, crying out to the God they know can help, to actually help.

And it references God's incredible might.

God split the sea, he dried up rivers, and he broke the HEADS of Leviathan.

In v 13 we hear of God defeating the Sea Monsters (ESV) or the dragons (KJV) in the water, then V 14 shows what God did next. He gave the meat of Leviathan to the creatures of the wilderness, a word often used of the desolate and infertile desert.

So God will take this mighty sea creature, destroy it, and scatter it's remains in the furthest possible place from it's place of power. Whatever strength or might Leviathan had in his watery home, he is stripped of that and tossed into the dry and desolate desert to be gnawed on and nibbled at.

But don't forget that detail, those HEADS.

NICOT - However, the way in which Leviathan is identified in the Ugaritic texts now makes it appear that this threefold form was simply a poetic convention in the Canaanite area. Note the similarities: “If you smite Lotan the serpent slant/ [brḥ, same as Hebrew, here translated “slithering.” Albright, BASOR 83 (1941) 39, 40, suggests “primordial.”] Destroy the serpent tortuous/ [ʿqltn, same as Hebrew, here translated “twisted.”] Shalyat of the seven heads.…” [UT, p. 178 (67:1: 1–3, 27–30; ANET, p. 138). Ringgren, ASTI 9 (1973) 114, points out that this close similarity favors an earlier date rather than a later one. But Löwenstamm argues against any direct connection (Eretz-Israel 9 [1969] 96–101, 136).]

What about the beginning of Leviathan?

2 Esdras, an apocryphal book, mentions these animals in 2 Esdras 6:49-52, in an extended retelling of Creation.

2 Esdras 6:49–52 NRSV

“Then you kept in existence two living creatures; the one you called Behemoth and the name of the other Leviathan. And you separated one from the other, for the seventh part where the water had been gathered together could not hold them both. And you gave Behemoth one of the parts that had been dried up on the third day, to live in it, where there are a thousand mountains; but to Leviathan you gave the seventh part, the watery part; and you have kept them to be eaten by whom you wish, and when you wish.

This was supposedly penned by Ezra, recounting a series of visions he was given by God before he returned to Israel and helped rebuild the temple. While not biblical, and undoubtedly not written by Ezra, it gives a glimpse into the ancient Jewish understanding of the beginning and end of these legendary creatures.

Both were created on the 5th day, and both would be eaten by those chosen by God at the time he chooses.

What about the end?

Very similar language about their creation is used about them in I Enoch 60:7-10, with 2 Baruch 29:4 highlighting the theme of their being eaten, but like I Enoch, not eaten by creatures of the wilderness, (Psalm 74) but instead is an end times picture of ultimate restoration and God's healing of all ills and providing for his people as they enter eternal rest and blessing.

This is expanded on even more in one Jewish prayer traditionally uttered during the feast of Booths/Tabernacles, that longs for the day when God will slay Leviathan and then give his people tents made of his hide.

While, I suppose, not outside the realm of possibility, we're straying into the land of speculative daydreaming.

The point is that the Jewish people saw Leviathan as a creature, with flesh and skin, but also so much more.

Much like how we might see a black cat as more than just a dark feline, we see it as a harbinger of ill tidings. We see it as bad luck. It’s more than just the physical creature. There is the physical creature, but there’s so much more that comes along with that! There’s that idea of chaos and evil and seeking to undo the order and patterns and goodness that God has set up.

Same with Leviathan.

So, what’s Job tell us about this beast?

Job’s Encounter with Leviathan

Finally, here we are, the longest and most detailed look at this beast in our Bibles!

Job 41-1:11 He is untamable and undefeatable by man.

Now, just like Behemoth, let's ask, what kind of animal do you think this is?

Crocodile is often put out there.

Perhaps, but we have ancient records of crocodile hunts in Egypt and while similar to this description of the hunt, they were catchable.

Leviathan is in another league completely!

ESV Expository - Will Leviathan beg for mercy (“make many pleas to you”/“speak to you soft words”; v. 3)? No! Will he admit defeat and offer himself as a bondslave for life (“make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever”; v. 4)? No! Will he eventually be so domesticated that he would become like a dove (“will you play with him as with a bird”) or a collie (“will you put him on a leash for your girls?”; v. 5)? “A girl leading on a leash a crocodile that may weigh as much as a ton is a whimsical if not absurd scene.”189

Job 41:12-34 “King of the Sons of Pride”

Vs. 18-20 also pose a bit of a problem for the crocodile theory.

Job 41:18–20 ESV

His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

As much as some may wish to downplay what the text seems to say. Look at page 175 in our books.

Do you think David Allen has it right, or do you think he is missing something?

It seem pretty evident to me that Leviathan was, in fact, a fire-breathing monster. Now, we obviously don’t have any fire-breathing creatures today.

But, it would make sense if our many, many, many legends of fire-breathing dragons actually had some truth to them.

Moving on...

In V. 32 KJV says “He maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to be hoary.” Odd, right?

UBS - One would think the deep to be hoary: the deep is the same word used in 28:14; 38:16, 30. The reference is to the deep sea. Hoary translates “gray head,” that is, a head covered with white or gray hair. Here it refers to the foam on the water, which is expressed by the metaphor of the white head of hair.”

Now, I love that final title used for Leviathan.

“He is king over all the sons of pride”

What do you think that means?

But that pride, that power, is nothing compared to his creator.

Leviathan wasn’t being paraded around for amusement, he was mentioned by God for a reason.

God is even bigger.

Remember, God is his beginning and end.

He is a magnificent physical creature.

But he is also so much more, he was often seen as a picture of hostile powers.

The chaos trying to overcome God's order, the unpredictable and untamable desolation that always threatens, that nearly unconquerable force that seeks the hurt of all under it's sway. In many ways, like a lion roaring and seeking whom he can devour.

Holman Illustration Dictionary “Leviathan was seen in ancient legend as a sea monster engaged in primordial warfare with the gods. This creature represented chaos in a personified manner that any creator deity had to overcome in order to create. Leviathan was also seen as a threat to the orderliness of the universe and ultimately to be subdued at the end of time.”

LBD - “In addition to the references to Leviathan, the Hebrew Bible alludes to the ancient Near Eastern divine combat myth with references to Rahab (רַהַב, rahav), “sea monster” (תַּנִּין, tannin), “serpent” (נָחָשׁ, nachash), and “sea” (יָם, yam). The combat myth usually results in a cosmogony—the creation of the ordered universe. The biblical writers adopted this motif, but they adapted it to a new setting: The divine combat myth was now used to describe Yahweh’s omnipotence over chaos.”

The Lesson of Leviathan

BST - “We recall Lesslie Newbigin’s concern that our culture is obsessed with the sort of scientific world-view which sees everything in terms of questions which need answering and problems which need solving. The book of Job has shown us that there are questions for which there are no answers this side of heaven, and problems which human logic cannot solve. But it has also shown us the living God—a ‘God of surprises’ (as Gerard Hughes entitles one of his books),18 a hidden God who makes his presence known sometimes through his apparent absence, a God whose encounter with us prevents us from tidying up every problem corner of our lives into neat and manageable packages. There is an unhelpful decisiveness in some aspects of Christian faith which gets in the way of meeting God in depth. There is an attempt to have everything buttoned up and secure. There is a defensive need to be sure. The book of Job, instead, brings us face to face with the living God, and invites us to live in his light with all our logical gaps, untidy edges and struggling faith.”

We, in our scientific age, long to know exactly what Leviathan physically was.

Which dinosaur, which dragon, which fossils could be his or his kin?

But in all the science and with all the history and fun, let us not forget the point.

AiG - “Just as God challenged Job to “look on everyone who is proud and abase him” (Job 40:11), so Leviathan “sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride.” (Job 41:34). Job could not abase (lower) proud humanity, but he also cannot take on the proud Leviathan. The only one who can bring down Leviathan is the one who made him; therefore, “Yahweh’s argument is that since no human being can subject Leviathan, surely then no person can ever be so mighty or exalted as to challenge successfully Yahweh’s rule.””

It challenges us to uproot our own pride and humble ourselves before God.

The whole point of this was to remind Job that he couldn’t challenge God, and had no standing to question his rule.

While God is merciful and kind when dealing with our doubts, the bottom line is that we have no possible way of understanding him or his creation of his ways, and we must give up our thinking that we are better or greater or know more than he does.

CSB Study Bible “41:10–11 If Job would not dare to face Leviathan single-handedly, how could he hope to confront God who owned everything (including Leviathan) in order to present and win an argument (31:35–37)?

What’s that look like in our lives?

How can our own pride rise up, much like a sea monster, and start to bring chaos on our lives?

In what ways have we rebelled against God and seen his defeat of that rebellion?

Now, see Page 176 in books.