the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
free while helping to build churches and support pastors in Uganda.
Click here to learn more!
Bible Dictionaries
Leviathan
Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary
or In the book of Job we meet with the mention of this huge creature, Job 41:1-34. Some have supposed it the whale, and others the crocodile. The word itself is probably compounded of Leviath, what is joined together—and Than, a great fish. It should seem to be a specific word, in allusion to this sea-monster, as if they said, there is the leviathan, that is, the great fish, whose parts are so closed together that nothing scarce can pierce them. The sacred writers, in more than one instance, make use of this name figuratively, to describe the devil and his ministers. Thus (Isaiah 27:1) "In that day the Lord, with his sore and great and strong sword, shall punish the leviathan,the piereing serpent, even leviathan, that crooked, serpents and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." The great enemy of souls will be reckoned with in the great day of God, and he shall be punished in due time; and subordinately to him, all the enemies of the church of Christ, the leviathans, and dragons, and serpents which act in the devil's name, and fight in his cause, will come in also for the doom. So again the Psalmist, speaking figuratively, saith, (Psalms 74:14) "Thou brakest the head of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to thy people inhabiting the wilderness:" meaning, that as in the Red Sea the Lord overthrew and destroyed that type of the devil, Pharaoh, so in the after-journies of the people during their wilderness state, whenever they were put to wilderness straits, the recollection of the Lord's deliverance of them in that memorable instance, became meat for their faith to feed upon. He that had delivered them from so great a death, they were taught to believe, did and would still deliver them. It is blessed thus to feast upon past mercies; when new ones are only coming on, and not fully come. Every enemy subdued, every affliction past, then becomes sanctified, when the Holy Ghost as the Remembrancer of Christ Jesus, brings them forth again to our recollection. Oh, how many leviathans, and serpents, and scorpions, have the Lord's people, in the Lord's strength, contended with and conquered during their short pilgrimage state. Surely it may be said of the church now, as well as of the church of old, "the Lord thy God led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions and drought, where there was no water." And what was the result? "The Lord thy God brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; he fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end." (Deuteronomy 8:15-16)
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Hawker, Robert D.D. Entry for 'Leviathan'. Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance and Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/pmd/l/leviathan.html. London. 1828.
