Loading…

Piercing Leviathan: God’s Defeat of Evil in the Book of Job is unavailable, but you can change that!

One of the most challenging passages in the Old Testament book of Job comes in the Lord’s second speech (40–41). The characters and the reader have waited a long time for the Lord to speak—only to read what is traditionally interpreted as a long description of a hippopotamus and crocodile (Behemoth and Leviathan). The stakes are very high: is God right to run the world in such a way that allows...

Two concluding verses are given in evaluation of Leviathan that repeatedly emphasize his incomparable supremacy (vv. 33–34). He is a king without equal and without fear. Even when emphasizing Leviathan’s uniqueness, however, this concluding evaluation recalls verses 10–11 and the creature’s inferiority to God. This is accomplished by describing him as ‘a creature without fear’ (v. 33). The word translated ‘creature’ is a qal passive participle: ‘a thing created’. Just as Behemoth is a creature along
Page 118