Job 41 Devotional
by Pastor Lawrence
The Behemoth, a land monster mentioned in the previous chapter, ought to be considered together with the Leviathan, the great and fearsome monster of the sea. There are two different schools of thought concerning these monsters that God mentions and that Job must have had some familiarity with. The Literalists have for years stated that the Behemoth was an ancient description of the Hippopotamus and that the Leviathan was some sort of large crocodile. In more recent years, a number of creation science proponents have suggested that these two unique creatures refer to specific prehistoric dinosaurs. If I were to take the literalist approach, I would lean toward the latter given the size and proportion of each creature, but it’s hard to know for sure what the Lord intended to point out without have a scientific name or sketch of the creatures. But at first it seems that in Psalm 104:24-26, the psalmist intended to include the Leviathan as some sort of very large sea creature made by the hands of God in the same way that He made the rest of the creatures of the deep.
On the other hand, there are definitely times in which these two creatures seem to have more of a mythical status granting that even the Jews were conversant with these pagan mythologies. For instance, in Psalm 74:13-14 Asaph depicts Israel’s Exodus from Egypt in terms of slaying the mythical beast, saying of the Lord, “you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.” In this passage, the Leviathan is depicted as a multi-headed monster and in our passage in Job, the same creature breathes fire like a dragon. Although these things are not impossible, they are unlikely especially given the poetic language in which they are portrayed.
What is interesting is how the prophet Isaiah speaks of the Leviathan in Isaiah 27:1, calling him, Leviathan the fleeing serpent, and Leviathan the twisting serpent, and how he foresees God slaying the dragon that is in the sea. This same language is picked up in Revelation by calling Satan that ancient dragon who will be thrown into the pit on the final day. In Revelation 13 both a great beast rising out of the sea and a great beast rising out of the earth are given power to terrorize the inhabitants of the earth for a time.
So which is it? Are the Leviathan and the Behemoth merely massive creatures of God’s good creation, or are they something sinister lurking in the dark shadows of the earth and the sea? If these two creatures represent merely a crocodile and a hippo then I’m not sure why God would spend so much time describing them as opposed to all the other creatures mentioned in passing in the previous chapters, nor can I understand how this information is supposed to help Job in the midst of his suffering. If, on the other hand, these two creatures symbolically represent Satan and Suffering, or the Devil and Death then the Lord seems to be reminding Job of his great power and authority over the very things that Job and the rest of us fear the most.
Even though these figures are frightening and overwhelming to us, the Lord has them both on a tight leash, and, in a moment, he can, and will, bring them both to an end. With all of Job’s complaints concerning God’s justice and all of our accusations against God’s sovereign decrees, we cannot see the chains with which God binds them nor the wisdom with which he uses them to carry out his mysterious providence.
Truly, God is above all and over all and we simply must trust Him and let God bring about our deliverance at the proper time, for just as he feeds the little birds so he provides the myrtle trees as shade for the Behemoth and the sea as a playpen for the Leviathan.