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“What is the Leviathan?”
“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord?
Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?”
Job 41:1-2
The mysterious Leviathan raises its frightening head(s) a few times in the Old Testament (Psa. 74:12-19; 104:25-26; Isa. 27:1; Job 3:8; 41:1-34) and, perhaps, once in the New Testament as the “beast from the sea” (Rev. 13:1). What is this mysterious, untamable, water-dwelling, fire-breathing, multi-headed monster?
The word “Leviathan” most likely means “the writhing or twisting one,” which suggests a snake-like body. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, the word translated “Leviathan” is drakon in Job 41, the serpentine creature from which our English “dragon” is derived. In Job 3, however, the “Leviathan” is ketos or Cetus, a Greek dragon with a pig’s snout. The Bible describes Leviathan as a kind of tannin or “sea monster” (Psa. 74:13-14; Isa. 27:1; cf. Gen. 1:21), which, in ancient Near Eastern mythology, symbolized an aquatic, evil chaos-monster.
In Psalm 74:13-14, Leviathan is depicted as an enemy of the LORD which the LORD conquers and feeds to the creatures of the desert. In the surrounding context, the psalmist describes God defeating chaos and disorder within creation, echoing Genesis 1 when God shaped what was “formless” and filled what was “void.” God’s triumph over Leviathan is another display of his power over darkness and evil which strengthens the faith of the psalmist.
In Psalm 104, the Leviathan is categorized as one of the swarming creatures of the sea (Gen. 1:20f) which God formed for a particular purpose. This is similar to the reference in Job 41 which speaks of the power of Leviathan and another mysterious creature, Behemoth (Job 40:15ff). God created both creatures which no man can tame.
The reference in Isaiah 27:1 is symbolic. There, “Leviathan the fleeing… twisting serpent” becomes a cipher for Israel’s enemies whom God will punish. This apocalyptic description is picked up and made even more grotesque in Revelation 12-13, where the image of a devouring, multi-headed dragon is used to symbolize Satan, “that ancient serpent” (Rev. 12:9; cf. Gen. 3:1ff). This iconographic motif of Satan as a defeated serpent continued in early church history through the middle ages.
During the enlightenment, attempts were made to defend the scientific accuracy of Scripture which resulted in Behemoth and Leviathan being identified as the hippo and crocodile. But these animals simply don’t fit the descriptions in Job. A hippo’s tail cannot be described, even poetically, as “a cedar” (Job 40:17) and a crocodile doesn’t seem large enough to fit the description of Leviathan. Both creatures are probably best explained naturally as extinct reptiles; Behemoth could have been a Sauropod and Leviathan something akin to Mosasaurus.
This terrifying creature of immense proportions continues to captivate imaginations today. For example, the second season of Disney’s The Mandalorian features a creature called a krayt dragon that eats bovine animals called banthas (= Behemoths). The dragon is eventually called a Leviathan. After it is conquered, its flesh is divided and eaten as a delicacy by the native Tuskans (Psa. 74:14!).
While Scripture doesn’t give us a clear zoological classification, the Leviathan was both a physical creature formed by God and a symbolic creature. As a symbol of chaos and strength which no mere human could ever tame, Leviathan was used by the biblical writers as a means to speak about the greater power of God. What is untamable by mere humans is easily constrained by our Creator.
