Skip to main content
Bible Q

What is leviathan?

Answered by .

Leviathan occurs 6 times in 5 verses in the ESV

Job 3:8 Let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.
Job 41:1 “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord?
Psa 74:14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
Psa 104:26 There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.
Isa 27:1 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.

The context indicates are large sea monster of some kind, probably not real or literal. The Hebrew term is one of several rendered by the Greek word dragon in the Septuagint – but since dragon is used for 35 different occasions in the Old Testament for a variety of snake like creatures it cannot be assumed that the New Testament dragon in Revelation 12;7 and 16:3 equates to Leviathan, Leviathan is only a small part of the meaning of dragon in Old Testament usage.

 

Professor of Assyriology Wilfred Lambert comments on the ancient myth of Leviathan in the Old Testament context.

The inspired Old Testament writers were no more aloof from their world of ideas than the inspired New Testament writers. They needed to communicate with the people of their times, and God did not provide them with prescience of 20th century AD ideas, which would have baffled their contemporaries, though they might cosset weak faith in our own generation. Thus both Testaments mention demons, the devil, and dragons. One of the last in the Old Testament is Leviathan. It is a difficult creature to deal with since in some passages it may well be used to describe a large fearsome animal of those times (Psalm 104:26; Job 41:1), but in Isaiah 27:1 God is said to be going to slay in the future “Leviathan, that twisting sea serpent” (REB). We of course would treat this as symbolic, but it is in fact taken over as a phrase, word for word, from Canaanite mythology, in which Baal slays the monster. The version of the myth known to us comes from Ras Shamra on the coast of Syria and dates to c. 1300—1200 BC. Thus Old Testament writers could and did know and use material from their environment in order to teach the truths of God, just like New Testament writers. In matters of creation, note how both earth and water are taken as existing from the beginning; no account is given of their origin. Also the cosmic water is divided into two parts. But the truths which emerge from this material in Genesis are worlds apart from ancient mythology, and they are truths which have stood the test of time. They are:

(i) The universe,the earth and the human race, did not arise by chance or accident, but by the express will and purpose of God.
(ii) Man is the cream of God’s creation on earth, alone able to interact with God on a spiritual level.
(iii) Moral evil exists because God created man with free will, which allows a choice between moral good and bad, and bad was chosen.
These are the fundamentals on which true faith in God rests, and this relationship between God and man is what God intended in providing Scripture.
— Wilfred Lambert, Creation A Christadelphian Study—Understanding Genesis chapters 1-3, pub. Les Boddy, 1998
The use of dragon in Isaiah 27:1 as noted by Professor Lambert is both taken from pagan literature and used of (or against) a pagan nation. This is a practice found in many of Isaiah’s prophecies against pagan nations, showing the prophets detailed awareness of the religions and legends of those states. This is a practice found in other Jewish prophets, not least the mocking of Baal by Elijah, which parodies Baal myths.

No Comments yet!