Leviathan, Behemoth, and Ziz

 ^{This post is dedicated to the Three Monsters of Biblical word--Leviathan, Behemoth, and Ziz. I will start with Leviathan, writing first his biblical mention in Job.} 

 

^"1 Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope?

² Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?

³ Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words?

⁴ Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life?

⁵ Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls?

⁶ Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants?

⁷ Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?

⁸ If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again!

⁹ Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering.

¹⁰ No-one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me?

¹¹ Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

¹² I will not fail to speak of his limbs, his strength and his graceful form.

¹³ Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle?

¹⁴ Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth?

¹⁵ His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together;

¹⁶ each is so close to the next that no air can pass between.

¹⁷ They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.

¹⁸ His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn.

¹⁹ Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out.

²⁰ Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.

²¹ His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth.

²² Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him.

²³ The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable.

²⁴ His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone.

²⁵ When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing.

²⁶ The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.

²⁷ Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood.

²⁸ Arrows do not make him flee, slingstones are like chaff to him.

²⁹ A club seems to him but a piece of straw, he laughs at the rattling of the lance.

³⁰ His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing-sledge.

³¹ He makes the depths churn like a boiling cauldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.

³² Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair.

³³ Nothing on earth is his equal— a creature without fear.

³⁴ He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud."

 

The Lord Himself spoke of Leviathan! So is this terrifying marine monster reality or fantasy? Is he waiting to be awoken beneath the depths?

 Behemoth is also a monster mentioned by God in Job:

¹⁵ Behold now the behemoth that I have made with you; he eats grass like cattle.
¹⁶ Behold now his strength is in his loins and his power is in the navel of his belly.
¹⁷ His tail hardens like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together.
¹⁸ His limbs are as strong as copper, his bones as a load of iron.
¹⁹ His is the first of God's ways; [only] his Maker can draw His sword [against him].
²⁰ For the mountains bear food for him, and all the beasts of the field play there.
²¹ Does he lie under the shadows, in the cover of the reeds and the swamp?
²² Do the shadows cover him as his shadow? Do the willows of the brook surround him?
²³ Behold, he plunders the river, and [he] does not harden; he trusts that he will draw the Jordan into his mouth.
²⁴ With His eyes He will take him; with snares He will puncture his nostrils.

The Lord spoke very matter-of-factly about the Behemoth and Leviathan--are they both real monsters that await the calling by God to awake from their torpor? Behemoth is described almost as a Dragon/dinosaur-like monster--a land monster, albeit.

 Ziz is the Third monster of the biblical monsters, and also the least mentioned, as he is spoken of only in the Book of Enoch, which, unfortunately, is not included in the Bible we read today. He is said to be a giant bird--his wings huge enough to blot out the sun and darken the world. There are no biblical passages speaking of Ziz, but the story has it that at the End of Time, God will slay Leviathan, Behemoth, and Ziz, and that the tents of the righteous will be made of Leviathan's brilliant scales, and the righteous will feast on the flesh of both Leviathan and Ziz. However, this is perhaps not meant literally--and instead, could possibly be meant allegorically, as the Book of Enoch was truly a fully allegorical book, similar to Revelations. So that could mean that Leviathan represents water, Behemoth represents land, and Ziz represents the sky--so that it can be said that the tents of the righteous were made out of the produce of the sea, and the feast that they eat would rather be the produce of both sea and sky. But the question still remains; why did God speak of Leviathan and Behemoth so literally? Was it meant allegorically or literally? Either way, it still terrifies people to imagine these primeval monsters. Are they real? We will not know until the End--we can only guess--but I'd say a fair guess is that these Three Monsters truly are real, whether in a literal sense or an allegorical sense.