Leviathan and Behemoth

Giant Chaos Monsters in the Bible

by Brian Godawa

Leviathan and Behemoth: Giant Chaos Monsters in the Bible
1st Edition (1.4)

Copyright © 2022 Brian Godawa
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-942858-88-1 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-942858-89-8 (paperback)

Warrior Poet Publishing
www.warriorpoetpublishing.com

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001. Except where noted NASB95:
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995).

Table of Contents

Table of Contents iii

1 Introducing Leviathan and Behemoth 1

2 Polemics and the Combat Myth 13

3 Storm God vs. Sea Dragon 20

4 Sea, River, Dragon 26

5 Leviathan and Rahab 32

6 Leviathan, Creation, and Covenant 42

7 Leviathan, Behemoth, and Eschatology 59

Great Offers by Brian Godawa 76

About the Author 77

1
Introducing Leviathan and Behemoth

Leviathan and Behemoth are two mighty creatures, mentioned in the Bible, whose history of interpretation has brought much theological debate. Are they real animals in our modern world? Are they extinct animals of the ancient world? Are they mythological or symbolic literary creatures? Are they biblical references to dinosaurs? 

My own biblical and historical study of them proved to be one of the most exciting theological journeys of my life. So much so that they are recurring characters through my entire novel series, Chronicles of the Nephilim, Chronicles of the Apocalypse, and Chronicles of the Watchers. Behemoth appears in the first three of the Nephilim series, but Leviathan shows up in every single novel as one of the most crucial elements of my storytelling.

Why? You will have to read this booklet to find out. And I hope it will open up your imagination as you read the novel series with this information in mind. I have adapted some of my research used for the novel series, but I have rewritten it all and added a more complete analysis of what was otherwise a handful of biblical sketches about these two monsters of chaos.

To launch us into the identities of these strange and mysterious characters, we begin our journey with a cursory reading of a passage from the book of Job that mentions both Leviathan and Behemoth. As you read through this description, keep in mind the basic context of the passage. Job has suffered great loss of his family, his friends, his wealth, his health, everything. He is finally broken. His faith has given way to doubt of God’s purposes and even goodness.

Job 30:19–21

God has cast me into the mire,
and I have become like dust and ashes. 

I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
I stand, and you only look at me. 

You have turned cruel to me;
with the might of your hand you persecute me. 

In response, Job’s friends give their mostly self-important and largely unhelpful advice, and then in chapter 38, God speaks from the whirlwind. He asks Job rhetorical questions to reveal his foolish and limited human understanding in comparison with God’s own glory, power and goodness. If Job cannot, like God, create these fantastic and fearsome beasts, let alone capture or control either of them, then what right does he have to question God’s power or purposes? Who is puny, ignorant Job to question the wisdom of his mighty Creator?

Job 40:2, 15 – 41:34

“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? 

      He who argues with God, let him answer it.”…

“Behold, Behemoth,
which I made as I made you;
he eats grass like an ox. 

Behold, his strength in his loins,
and his power in the muscles of his belly. 

He makes his tail stiff like a cedar;
the sinews of his thighs are knit together. 

His bones are tubes of bronze,
his limbs like bars of iron. 

He is the first of the works of God;
let him who made him bring near his sword! 

For the mountains yield food for him
where all the wild beasts play. 

Under the lotus plants he lies,
in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. 

For his shade the lotus trees cover him;
the willows of the brook surround him. 

Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened;
he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. 

Can one take him by his eyes,
or pierce his nose with a snare?

“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? 

Will he make many pleas to you?
Will he speak to you soft words? 

Will he make a covenant with you
to take him for your servant forever? 

Will you play with him as with a bird,
or will you put him on a leash for your girls? 

Will traders bargain over him?
Will they divide him up among the merchants? 

Can you fill his skin with harpoons
or his head with fishing spears? 

Lay your hands on him;
remember the battle—you will not do it again! 

Behold, the hope of a man is false;
he is laid low even at the sight of him. 

No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.
Who then is he who can stand before me? 

Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?
Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. 

I will not keep silence concerning his limbs,
or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame. 

Who can strip off his outer garment?
Who would come near him with a bridle? 

Who can open the doors of his face?
Around his teeth is terror. 

His back is made of rows of shields,
shut up closely as with a seal. 

One is so near to another
that no air can come between them. 

They are joined one to another;
they clasp each other and cannot be separated. 

His sneezings flash forth light,
and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. 

Out of his mouth go flaming torches;
sparks of fire leap forth. 

Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke,
as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. 

His breath kindles coals,
and a flame comes forth from his mouth. 

In his neck abides strength,
and terror dances before him. 

The folds of his flesh stick together,
firmly cast on him and immovable. 

His heart is hard as a stone,
hard as the lower millstone. 

When he raises himself up the mighty are afraid;
At the crashing they are beside themselves. 

Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail,
nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin. 

He counts iron as straw,
and bronze as rotten wood. 

The arrow cannot make him flee;
for him sling stones are turned to stubble. 

Clubs are counted as stubble;
he laughs at the rattle of javelins. 

His underparts are like sharp potsherds;
he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire. 

He makes the deep boil like a pot;
he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. 

Behind him he leaves a shining wake;
one would think the deep to be white-haired. 

On earth there is not his like,
a creature without fear. 

He sees everything that is high;
he is king over all the sons of pride.”

It is clear to see why these monsters have captivated the imaginations of scholars and laymen alike. They are somewhat familiar, and yet somewhat unfamiliar. What do their names mean? Do they correspond to any known creature in our past or present?

Behemoth: Literal or Literary?

Those who take a hyper-literal approach to their interpretation of these scriptures seek one of two ways to define these beasts: They either argue for actual known animals as referents or argue for extinct animals, sometimes including dinosaurs. And they are both wrong. 

If we look first at Behemoth, the most popular animals proposed as real-world referents are the hippopotamus, the crocodile, or the water buffalo. Despite the general connections of a strong and powerful creature that both lumbers in the river and on land, each of these fail to match up to the description of Behemoth in clear ways.

Hippos and water buffalos do not have tails like cedar trees (Job 40:17), which are more like little saplings. Crocodiles do not eat grass (Job 40:15); they eat animals like hippos and water buffalos. But most importantly, all of these animals were quite easily captured in the ancient world using the very traps and snares mentioned in Job 40:19 and 24. The key element of Behemoth’s monstrosity, making it beyond man’s ability to kill or capture, is a sign that it is something more than just a known animal of their world.

Young-Earth Creationists sometimes suggest that Behemoth is a dinosaur, probably an apatosaurus or brontosaurus of the sauropod family. Those creatures certainly ate grass and had tails like cedar trees. They were land and water dwellers, and would have been beyond man’s ability to capture or kill. 

Of course, the commonly accepted scientific view of the age of the earth, the geological timeline of the dinosaurs, and the complete lack of any evidence of dinosaurs co-existing with humans is enough for most people to discredit such a sauropod identity. But others do not trust this consensus, and not without good reason. While the history of science provides examples of the scientific establishment sometimes lying and suppressing facts that do not support dominant narratives and agendas, I have yet to see any evidence for it in this case.

But for those unwilling to accept the science, even the biblical text argues against Behemoth being a dinosaur. To begin with, the Hebrew behind the word Behemoth is linguistically a generic reference to land creatures, and specifically of cattle or oxen, which we’ve already seen does not match the monster’s description in totality for any known bovine. It is also in the plural in this case, which commentator Tremper Longman argues indicates “the so-called plural of majesty, The Beast, par excellence,” the symbolic ultimate land creature.

Secondly, that mighty bovine context is certainly not reptilian like a dinosaur. And the description’s lack of a sauropod’s huge long neck, one of the most distinguishing aspects of its appearance, implies that it does not have a sauropod’s huge long neck. Yes, this is an argument from silence, but in this case, the silence speaks loudly in context. 

There is yet another language problem that most likely discredits the entire massive-tail interpretation. I am going to refer to a poetic technique that occurs here and in many places in the Bible of which we will be discussing later as well. It is called parallelism. The Hebrew writers will sometimes describe one thing in two or more ways, creating a parallel structure. Notice the parallel structure in the passage about Behemoth’s tail:

Behold, his strength in his loins,
and his power in the muscles of his belly. 

He makes his tail stiff like a cedar;
the sinews of his thighs are knit together. 

Some scholars argue that this passage is not about the tail, but about the creature’s phallus, a common ancient sign of masculine power. Robert Alter translates the verse this way:

Look, pray: the power in his loins,
the virile strength in his belly’s muscles.

He makes his tail stand like a cedar,
his balls’ [testicles’] sinews twine together.

The first sentence refers explicitly to the loins, the region of the creature’s reproductive organs. Then in the second sentence, he parallels and goes further by describing those loins with euphemisms. The word for “thighs” is used elsewhere in the Bible as a euphemism for the male reproductive organ (Gen. 24:2; Ex. 1:5; Judg. 8:30). Thus, the tail, also becoming stiff, is a euphemism for an erection, another ancient symbol of virility and power.

Rather than bringing back the possibility of this being a hippopotamus or water buffalo, still easily captured by man, this points in the direction of a symbolic beast. Perhaps a more land-oriented beast in contrast with the sea-dwelling beast of Leviathan, which we will look at next.

Leviathan: Literal or Literary?

Is Leviathan a whale, a crocodile, a dinosaur, or some other extinct sea monster? Some think so because of Job 41’s precise detailed description of it. But detailed descriptions do not require literal creatures, as Daniel’s highly descriptive visions of four monstrous beasts symbolizing four historical kingdoms illustrates (Dan. 7), as well as the Apostle John’s detailed descriptions of the sea and land beasts that also symbolize earthly kingdoms of power (Rev, 13). Detailed descriptions do not require literal scientific interpretation.

And some of Leviathan’s details are quite discrediting for a real-world interpretation. Firstly, whales, crocodiles, and other known species are once again ruled out because ancient man could not capture or kill Leviathan (41:1) with harpoons (41:7), snares (41:13), swords and spears (41:26), or arrows and clubs (41:28-29), but he could do so with whales, crocodiles, and any other living creature. Leviathan is beyond human conquest, whales and crocodiles are not.

Secondly, the details of Leviathan’s physical traits are incompatible with the real world. He has scales so close to one another that no air can come between them, a literal impossibility (Job 41:15-16). His belly is sharp like potsherds, also unknown anywhere in other fish (41:30). He makes the deep water boil (41:31), another imaginative absurdity if not connected to the most impossible of all: Leviathan is a fire-breathing sea dragon.

His sneezings flash forth light,
and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. 

Out of his mouth go flaming torches;
sparks of fire leap forth. 

Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke,
as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. 

His breath kindles coals,
and a flame comes forth from his mouth. 

Young-Earthers face this inherently mythical power with attempted consistency and simply believe there must have been a dinosaur that breathed fire. They refer to a bombadier beetle that squirts a chemical at its enemies as an example of an animal’s potential to breath “fire.” But of course, it isn’t fire, but an acidic chemical substance. 

To be fair, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I am not against the possibility of a fire-breathing monster altogether. But a fire-breathing monster in water is more than an absent possibility: It is an absurd contradiction. While it is certainly logically possible that there exists somewhere, evidence yet unseen, of these strange beasts, it is scientifically as imaginative as a fantasy creature. Water would put out the very flames described in Job, whose language is not merely analogous to fire, but is actual fire as we understand it on land: flames, burning coals, sparks of fire, and smoke from the nostrils. “Coals” could be considered metaphoric. Fair enough. But fire-breathing in a water-breathing creature would have been eliminated by natural selection long ago. And that’s not “macroevolutionary.”

But what of the fact that Leviathan and Behemoth are literarily at the climax of a description in Job 39-40 of other indisputably real-world creatures like lions, donkeys, oxen, and eagles? Does this cement their identity in the real world? Not necessarily. Seeing that Job is an extremely poetic book, that interweaves its poetry with prose, where death (28:14) and the sea (28:22) are personified and given voice, where God himself describes his creation in symbolic terms, like the chaining of living constellations of the Pleaides, Orion, and the Bear of Ursa Major (38:31-32). Scholar Robert Alter explains the poetic nature of the book of Job:

The either/or rigidity of the debate over Behemoth and Leviathan quickly dissolves if we note that these two culminating images of the speech from the storm reflect the distinctive poetic logic for the development of meanings that we have been observing on both small scale and large in biblical poetry. The movement from literal to figurative, from verisimilar to hyperbolic, from general assertion to focused concrete image, is precisely the movement that carries us from the catalogue of beasts to Behemoth and Leviathan. … The very distinction we as moderns make between mythology and zoology would not have been so clear-cut for the ancient imagination. The Job poet and his audience, after all, lived in an era before zoos, and exotic beasts like the ones described in Chapters 40–41 were not part of an easily accessible and observable reality. The borderlines, then, between fabled report, immemorial myth, and natural history would tend to blur, and the poet creatively exploits this blur in his climactic evocation of the two amphibious beasts that are at once part of the natural world and beyond it.

In other words, Behemoth and Leviathan are most likely creatures of imagination that symbolize the epitome of a large and mighty creation that is outside man’s grasp and understanding. 

The fact that one is largely a land beast and the other a sea monster points toward symbolism of earthly creation’s totality, both land and sea. This will come into play more so when we look at the book of Revelation.

Regarding Leviathan, the strongest biblical proof that he is a symbolic creature is the fact that he is described as being killed multiple times in symbolic contexts at various historic instances. We will look closer at these instances later, but as a brief list: at creation, the dragon was pierced and shattered (Job 26:12-13), in other passages of that same cosmic genesis, he was left alone to swim and play (Gen. 1:21; Ps. 104:16); at the Red Sea crossing, the dragon is described as having its heads crushed and then he is eaten in the desert (Ps. 74:13-14); in contrary terms, he is pierced and cut into pieces at that same event (Isa 51:9-10); and, in an eschatological future, Yahweh will yet slay that sea serpent dragon with his sword (Isa. 27:1), but elsewhere, Jesus and his people conquered it with the New Covenant kingdom’s advent (Rev 12:9-14), even though that dragon is supposed to have been grabbed by an angel and thrown into the Abyss at the beginning of Christ’s millennium reign (Rev. 20:4). How do we make sense of all these historical references to defeat and death of the same chaos monster if he is not a symbol of the chaos and evil that rules the world in conflict with Yahweh’s kingdom?

In the Bible, Behemoth is mentioned only in this solitary Job passage, so we will have much less to say about it and will do so after we address Leviathan’s more significant presence in many places in Scripture—and very clearly symbolic contexts, I might add. When we are done surveying them, the symbolic meaning of Leviathan will be so loud and clear that even those who see Job 40-41 as literal descriptions will have to conclude that, regardless of whether they exist as real creatures, the Bible uses Leviathan and Behemoth as, dare I say, mythological chaos monsters to communicate symbolically the theological truth of Yahweh overcoming chaos and evil to establish his good and right covenantal order.

2
Polemics and the Combat Myth

The pantheon of gods assembles to battle the chaos monster to protect their territory and kingdom. When the waters of the heavens part, the sea dragon of chaos breaks through and leaves destruction in its wake. The pantheon fights the sea dragon and its monster allies until it is stopped in its tracks by the mighty storm god.

This is the ancient Near Eastern (ANE) storyline of the Canaanite myth of Baal and Leviathan as well as the Babylonian epic of Marduk and Tiamat the sea dragon. But it is also the storyline of the Marvel blockbuster movie The Avengers. 

Everything old is new again. 

The study of ancient mythological memes and motifs is too often written off as petty academic obsession with obscure archaic minutia that fail to connect to our lives in the modern world. But this booklet will prove that “Leviathan vs. the Storm God” is a tale we are still retelling today in cultures both religious and secular.

It is a mythological tale that should not frighten Christian believers with fears of blending paganism with their faith or believing in falsehoods. The word myth represents the very common literary concept of describing stories—both fictional and non-fictional—which embody a culture’s transcendent values or beliefs. The true story of Jesus Christ can also be considered mythic in that it embodies the transcendent values and beliefs found in Christian culture: self-sacrifice, atonement for sin, forgiveness, loving one’s God and neighbor, etc. The Gospel is, as C. S. Lewis called it, “true myth.”

To  understand Leviathan, we must understand its biblical and mythological contexts. which happen to intersect with the mythological contexts of its pagan neighbors’ own body of sacred literature, especially those of Canaan. And that Canaanite context involves a few elements, such as the sea, dragons, and another important name: Rahab. We will look at each of these individually, but at the center of them all is the Combat Myth, a theological narrative of divine struggle that expresses the meaning behind the cosmos…