LEVI B. GERSHON. [RALBAG.] LEVIATIIAN ori4; LXX. 76 1.4gya xCiros, 11.• Spcikun, ; Compl. ?-43iaecip), an aquatic animal, which, though only five times mentioned by name in the Bible (Job iii. ; xli. Heb. xl. 25 ; Ps. lxxiv. 14 ; civ. 26 ; Is. xxvii. t), is described in detail in the Book of Job (xli.) Its name is supposed to be derived from rcn., a garland, wreath,' hence an animal wreathed or twisted in folds.
There can bc no doubt that the description in Job applies to the crocodile, but in other passages leviathan is held to signify a large serpent, and a whale or other large marine animal. To decide how far the latter suppositions are probable, it will be necessary to examine the several passages relat ing to it, taking first those which certainly refer to the crocodile.
It will be well to notice the chief characteristics of leviathan in the description in Job, to render its identity with the crocodile in that place beyond doubt. The animal is first spoken of as not to be taken, like any small aquatic creature, with a hook ; as not to be tamed, whether as a plaything or an object of merchandise. Yet, more, he is im penetrable to pikes or fish-spears. The subject then changes. No longer to be assailed, leviathan is to be feared as an assailant whom none is so fierce as to stir up. His description then follows. fIis teeth are dreadful ; his back is coated with shield-like armour, closely fastened together, so that a breath entereth not between' the plates, his eyes [are] as the eyelids of [the] dawn,' his breath is fiery, his neck strong-, his muscles fast fixed together, his heart firm as a stone, yea hard as [the] nether millstone.' None can approach him with any weapon. Iron and brass are powerless against hint, so are sling-stones and the spear. The sea boils where he swims, and a path of foam shines after him. He is sovereign over all the children of pride' (rriti,.4-4,p); that is, the animals of prey (see xxviii. 8). It is marvellous that any scholar can have imagined that these characteristics denote the whale, or water-monsters in general, for, if applied to the crocodile, there is little, even in a passage full of vivid images, that is figurative. On the other hand, several points shew a mintite agreement ; it has been suggested by Col. Hamil. ton Smith, that the comparison of the eyes of leviathan to the eyelids of [the] dawni may be due to the contractile cat-like pupils' having in some crocodiles a luminous greenish tinge' [CRoco DILE, p. 589, a], and this is curiously illustrated by a passage in the Hieroglyphics' of Horapollo Nilous, where the eyes of a crocodile are said to denotc a rising or sunrise, because they alone shine from the deep CAvaroXin, Vryovres, Soo 600aX i.cotis xpoxoSeiXou sioyparpoi3o-w. breialprEp [1. gretSi7 irp6?] vavrOS CT 61.4CLT OS NOU ot 6000.1.LOZ el( TOO Pl1000 aVCCOCCIPOVT al, 1. SCC. lxvii. ed. Cory, pp. 85, 86.
The use of the word sea' to describe the crea ture's abode does not militate against the crocodile, for this term describes the Nile in the account of the grandeur and sack of Thebes in Nahum (iii. 8), and its Arabic equivalent, bahr,' is the name of both Nile and sea in modern Egypt ; besides that, it may be that a lake of Lower Egypt is intended.
Certainly sea.,? for the Nile, is a very rare use in the Bible, of which no certain instance but that in Nahum can be cited ; yet the grandeur of the whole description in Job would account for a preference for the most dignified tenns. The reference in an earlier passage in the same book is evidently to the same creature. Desperate men are there described as those who are ready to stir up leviathan' (Job iii. 8). This should be compared with, [There is] none [so] fierce as to stir him up' (xli. to, A. V. 2). Yet Gesenius imagines that a serpent is meant in the former passage.
In Ps. lxxiv. the terms dragons' (n,nr)) and leviathan are used to designate the Pharaoh of the Exodus. The Psalmist begins with a prayer for the deliverance of the Israelites and Zion from their oppressors. He then recalls God's wonders of old, Thou. didst divide the sea by thy might : thou didst break utterly the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou didst break the heads of levia than in pieces, [and] gayest him [to be] meat to the people dwelling in the wilderness' (D"Y, the wild beasts), vers. 13, 14. With this passage must be compared the parallel one of Isaiah, where the arm of the LORD 1S thus addressed : Art not [thou] it that hath hewed Rahab, [and] pierced through the dragon ? Art not [thou] it that hath dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep ; that hath made the depths of the sea a path for the ransomed to pass over ?' (li. 9, comp. 15). With these again should be compared the mention of the Exodus in Job, By his might he restrained [or rebukedl the sea, and by his wisdom he smote through Ra hab' [or pride' ] (xxvi. 12). These passages con nect the special name leviathan with the general term, tannin, dragon, as symbols of the Pharaoh of the Exodus, who could be thus represented by a water creature with especial fitness in the relation of the miracle of dividing the sea. Tannin, though certainly a general term, is used for the crocodile where Ezekiel describes the pride and overthrow of Pharaoh Hophra, with an apparent retrospect of the Exodus (xxix. 3, 4, 5). Such a retrospect would not only be appropriate, as Egypt was again to be humbled to the dust, but also from the proba bility that the river (` rivers,' pl. of lir') spoken of as the dragon's abode, his own, made by him for himself, was not the Nile, but (at least primarily) as Mr. Stanley Poole has argued with high proba bility, the Canal of the Red Sea (Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, RED SEA, iii. pp. tom, tort), com menced for the second time but a few years before the date of this prophecy, by Hophra's grandfather Phamoh Necho.* The Egyptian monuments do not throw any positive light upon this subject The crocodile was one of the sacred animals, but was not worshipped throughout the country, being hated and destroyed in some of the !tomes. It was sacred to the god SEBAK, a divinity of minor importance, represented with this animal's head. The use of the crocodile as a symbol of the king of Egypt seems therefore to be Shemite, not Egyptian.