Leviathan

Biblical Texts

Leviathan is a great creature of the sea (or the waters) that appears in five passages of the Old Testament.

• Job 3:8: As Job curses the day of his birth, he mentions those who are skilled at rousing Leviathan.
• Job 41: An entire chapter of God's speech to Job is devoted to describing Leviathan. It cannot be caught with a hook or a spear; sword, arrow, and sling stone are useless against it; and it is portrayed as though fire comes out of its mouth. It is paired with Behemoth, described in the preceding chapter, Job 40.
• Psalm 74:14: The psalmist declares that God broke the heads of Leviathan: "Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces."
• Psalm 104:26: Leviathan, whom God made, plays in the sea.
• Isaiah 27:1: The prophet foretells that "in that day" the LORD "shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

Background

The Hebrew livyatan is commonly connected with a root meaning "to twist" or "to coil," but its etymology remains uncertain. Texts from Ugarit in ancient Syria speak of Lotan, a seven-headed serpent defeated by the god Baal. Because this language closely resembles Isaiah 27:1, many scholars hold that the two texts share a common cultural background. In the ancient Near East, the sea and sea monsters often represented chaos threatening order. The Korean Revised Version rendered the term as "crocodile" in Job and Psalms, while the New Korean Revised Version transliterated the Hebrew as "Leviathan."

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

The Old Testament does not portray Leviathan as a mythological being that opposes God as an equal. Rather, it portrays Leviathan as a creature that God made (Psalm 104:26) and rules. By presenting a Leviathan that no human can withstand, Job 41 reveals the sovereignty of the God who created it. In Psalm 74 the reference appears alongside God's dividing of the sea, so some read it as a figurative allusion to God's victory over Egypt at the Exodus. Isaiah 27:1 uses the name as a symbol of God's judgment on evil powers on the last day.

The name Leviathan does not appear in the New Testament. However, Revelation calls Satan "the great dragon... that old serpent" (Revelation 12:9), depicts a beast rising out of the sea (Revelation 13:1), and declares of the new heaven and new earth that "there was no more sea" (Revelation 21:1). Many interpreters see the same symbolism continuing in these passages.

Interpretations and Debates

• A real animal: This view takes Leviathan as a poetically magnified description of a large animal such as a crocodile or a whale.
• A symbol: This view regards it as a poetic expression that borrows the ancient Near Eastern image of the chaos monster to celebrate God's sovereignty.
• A power of evil: Since the patristic era, part of the Christian tradition has read Leviathan as a symbol of Satan or of the forces of evil.
• An extinct creature: Some in creation science circles view Job 41 as a description of an extinct large reptile such as a dinosaur. Other Christians and scholars object to reading poetic description as a biological record (see Creation and Evolution).

Later Jewish tradition tells of the righteous feasting on the flesh of Leviathan at the end of the age, but no such account appears in the biblical text. The political philosopher Thomas Hobbes's book Leviathan merely borrows the name.

In the Korean Church

In sermons on Job, Leviathan is frequently cited as an illustration of human limitation and God's sovereignty. At some gatherings that emphasize spiritual warfare, Leviathan is called the "spirit of pride," based on the verse in Job 41 concerning "the children of pride" (Job 41:34). Critics counter that the text can hardly be read as teaching that Leviathan is a specific spiritual being.