Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
    or tie down its tongue with a rope?
Can you put a cord through its nose
    or pierce its jaw with a hook?
Will it keep begging you for mercy?
    Will it speak to you with gentle words?
Will it make an agreement with you
    for you to take it as your slave for life?
Can you make a pet of it like a bird
    or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?
Will traders barter for it?
    Will they divide it up among the merchants?
Can you fill its hide with harpoons
    or its head with fishing spears?
If you lay a hand on it,
    you will remember the struggle and never do it again!
Any hope of subduing it is false;
    the mere sight of it is overpowering.
No one is fierce enough to rouse it.
    Who then is able to stand against me?
Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
    Everything under heaven belongs to me.
“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs,
    its strength and its graceful form.
Who can strip off its outer coat?
    Who can penetrate its double coat of armor?
Who dares open the doors of its mouth,
    ringed about with fearsome teeth?
Its back has rows of shields
    tightly sealed together;
each is so close to the next
    that no air can pass between.
They are joined fast to one another;
    they cling together and cannot be parted.
Its snorting throws out flashes of light;
    its eyes are like the rays of dawn.
Flames stream from its mouth;
    sparks of fire shoot out.
Smoke pours from its nostrils
    as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.
Its breath sets coals ablaze,
    and flames dart from its mouth.
Strength resides in its neck;
    dismay goes before it.
The folds of its flesh are tightly joined;
    they are firm and immovable.
Its chest is hard as rock,
    hard as a lower millstone.
When it rises up, the mighty are terrified;
    they retreat before its thrashing.
The sword that reaches it has no effect,
    nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
Iron it treats like straw
    and bronze like rotten wood.
Arrows do not make it flee;
    slingstones are like chaff to it.
A club seems to it but a piece of straw;
    it laughs at the rattling of the lance.
Its undersides are jagged potsherds,
    leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
    and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
It leaves a glistening wake behind it;
    one would think the deep had white hair.
Nothing on earth is its equal—
    a creature without fear.
It looks down on all that are haughty;
    it is king over all that are proud.”

• Job 41:1-34

Job 41:1-34 ”Leviathan: This term appears in 4 other OT texts (Job 3:8; Pss. 74:14; 104:26; Is. 27:1). In each case Leviathan refers to some mighty creature who can overwhelm man but who is no match for God. Since this creature lives in the sea among ships (Ps. 104:26), some form of sea monster, possibly an ancient dinosaur, is in view. Some feel it was a crocodile, which had scaly hide (v. 15), terrible teeth (v. 14), and speed in the water (v. 32). But crocodiles are not sea creatures, and clearly this one was (v. 31). Some have thought it was a killer whale or a great white shark, because he is the ultimate killer beast over all other proud beasts (v. 34). It could also have been some sea-going dinosaur.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

The Message

The next chapter that speaks of God’s response to all that has been discussed by Job and the “friends” is Job 41.

This chapter is basically a continuation of God’s argument that He created beasts that only He, God, can control.  The beast of the land was Behemoth, discussed at the end of Job 40.  But the entire chapter of Job 41 is the description of the Leviathan.

Leviathan is thought by some to be a crocodile.  Warren W. Wiersbe points out that verses 12-24 point in that direction in that fish do not have limbs, and some of the description could match a crocodile while thrashing during the kill.  Rev. MacArthur, above, says it is a sea creature, and crocodiles are not sea creatures.

Could it be a killer whale that might look like it is smoking when clearing the blow hole to breathe?  The killer whale, orca, is the larger cousin of the dolphin, more than a whale which is also a mammal instead of a fish.  A whale, while large, does not have the sharp teeth like the orca.  The great white shark is a fish, but probably too small.  Yet, have we ever tamed one?

But as Rev. MacArthur mentions in the previous chapter about the Behemoth, it could be a now extinct dinosaur.

The fire breathing, could be explained by what sailors thought they saw referring to a blow hole, the flashing lights could be a phenomenon related to the sun bouncing off the splashes of water, while the sailor was scared out of his wits.  God was speaking poetically, but He was probably passing on what sailors “think” they saw.

The point is that the Behemoth and the Leviathan were untamable.  The Orca might then have to be disqualified.

Those that wish to discredit these descriptions negate the idea of the dinosaur.  And for the Leviathan and the fish that swallowed Jonah, they argue that no bones have been found.  But being sea creatures, their bones are probably in deep water under layers of sedimentary rock.

For Jonah, God might have created a fish just for that purpose.  But they have found remains of huge sea-going dinosaurs.  Of course, the scientists who wish to “disprove” the Bible are not going to allow the Christians to suggest the dinosaur.

This may have to be something we take by faith until somebody finds a very interesting fossil.

But God spends more time talking about Leviathan than He does talking about Behemoth, and the Israelites were not a sea going people.  Were they afraid of the Leviathan?

And now let us sing.

The following song is Oceans.  This is sung by Jimmy Levy.

 

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord,
We need Your wisdom.  Lord, You are God, and we are not.  All glory, honor, and praise are due You and You alone.  You create creatures that are beyond are comprehension, but Your imagination is infinite.  You have a whimsical nature that we cannot understand.  All we can do is bow down in Your presence.  In thy Name we pray.
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.