SUMMARY
The last creature God describes is LeviathanLeviathan is a biblical sea monster. Often mistakenly identified as a whale, this creature is perceived as larger and meaner than a whale. Leviathan is mentioned in Job, Psalms, and Isaiah as an example of enormity, who is eclipsed only by the enormity and power..., the mythological sea dragon.
ANALYSIS
God saves the most ferocious creature, Leviathan, for last, and this description of Leviathan is the longest of any in the whirlwind speeches. Leviathan is named elsewhere in the Bible as the primordial sea creature/monster/dragon who has to be defeated in order for God to create the habitable world (PsalmA psalm is a song of praise. In the Old Testament 150 psalms comprise the psalter, although some of the psalms are laments and thanksgivings. In the New Testament early Christians gathered to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. 74; IsaiahIsaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied in Jerusalem, is included among the prophets of the eighth century BCE (along with Amos, Hosea, and Micah)--preachers who boldly proclaimed God's word of judgment against the economic, social, and religious disorders of their time. 27). This myth of the defeat of the sea or sea monster is well-known from other ancient Near Eastern texts, including the second millennium BCE Babylonian epic, the Enuma Elish. Here in Job, however, Leviathan is simply another of God’s creatures, albeit the fiercest and most dangerous of those creatures. Indeed, in the last verse of the whirlwind speeches, Leviathan is described as “king over all that are proud” (41:34).
God challenges Job to use Leviathan in any of the ways that human beings use animals – as food, as pets, as labor, as entertainment – and then says this, “Lay hands on it; think of the battle; you will not do it again!” (41:8). Though dangerous and fearsome, Leviathan is not in this speech the enemy of God, as he is in most other biblical texts (with the exception of Psalm 104). In fact, God seems to take great pride in Leviathan’s strength, speaking in detail of his scales and his fiery breath (41:12-21).
Again, God seems to delight in showing off creatures that are wild and free and completely outside the control of human beings. Leviathan is indifferent to humanity and therefore potentially dangerous to them, but Leviathan still has a place in the cosmos. Job is invited in the whirlwind speeches to live in a world that is not necessarily safe for human beings, but that is beautiful in its wildness. Though not conventionally comforting, the whirlwind speeches move Job into a new understanding of the world, a world that includes even creatures like Leviathan.
