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Bible Dictionaries
Dragon
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or This word is frequently to be met with in our English translation of the Bible. It answers generally to the Hebrew תן , תנין , תנים ; and these words are variously rendered dragons, serpents, sea- monsters, and whales. The Rev. James Hurdis, in a dissertation relative to this subject, observes, that the word translated "whales," in Genesis 1:21 , occurs twenty-seven times in Scripture; and he attempts, with much ingenuity, to prove that it every where signifies the crocodile. That it sometimes has this meaning, he thinks is clear from Ezekiel 29:3 : "Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers." For, to what could a king of Egypt be more properly compared than the crocodile? The same argument he draws from Isaiah 51:9 : "Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab, [Egypt,] and wounded the dragon?" Among the ancients the crocodile was the symbol of Egypt, and appears so on Roman coins. Some however have thought the hippopotamus intended; others, one of the larger species of serpents.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Dragon'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/d/dragon.html. 1831-2.
