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Job

About this book
Chapter 41

1 “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook and tie down its tongue with a rope?⁠ 2 Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? 3 Will it make numerous supplications to you; will it speak to you with tender words? 4 Will it make a pact with you, so you could take it as your slave for life? 5 Can you play with it, like a bird, or tie it on a leash for your girls?⁠ 6 Will partners bargain for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? 7 Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears? 8 If you lay your hand on it, you will remember the fight. Do not do it again! 9 (41:1) See, his expectation is wrong; he is laid low even at the sight of it. 10 Is it not fierce when it is awakened? Who is he, then, who can stand before it? 11 Who has confronted me that I should repay?⁠ Everything under heaven belongs to me! 12 I will not keep silent about its limbs, and the extent of its might, and the grace of its arrangement. 13 Who can uncover its outer covering? Who can penetrate to the inside of its armor? 14 Who can open the doors of its mouth? Its teeth all around are fearsome. 15 Its back has rows of shields, shut up closely together as with a seal; 16 each one is so close to the next that no air can come between them. 17 They lock tightly together, one to the next; they cling together and cannot be separated. 18 Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the red glow of dawn. 19 Out of its mouth go flames; sparks of fire shoot forth! 20 Smoke streams from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning rushes. 21 Its breath sets coals ablaze, and a flame shoots from its mouth. 22 Strength lodges in its neck, and despair runs before it. 23 The folds of its flesh are tightly joined; they are firm on it, immovable. 24 Its heart is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. 25 When it rises up, the mighty are terrified;⁠ at its thrashing about they withdraw. 26 Whoever strikes it with a sword will have no effect, nor with the spear, arrow, or dart. 27 It regards iron as straw and bronze as rotten wood. 28 Arrows do not make it flee; slingstones become like chaff to it. 29 A club is counted as a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance. 30 Its underparts are the sharp points of potsherds; it leaves its mark in the mud like a threshing sledge. 31 It makes the deep boil like a cauldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment, 32 It leaves a glistening wake behind it; one would think the deep had a head of white hair. 33 The likes of it is not on earth, a creature without fear. 34 It looks on every haughty being; it is king over all that are proud.”

Texts in conversation

Untamable Leviathan in Job 41 and 1 Enoch 60

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

1 Enoch describes Leviathan and Behemoth as immense creatures under divine control, set apart for final judgment. It follows traditions of Leviathan as a mythological chaos monster, such as in Job, where it is portrayed as untamable.

Passages

Job 41:1

Hebrew Bible
1 “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook and tie down its tongue with a rope? 2 Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? 3 Will it make numerous supplications to you; will it speak to you with tender words? 4 Will it make a pact with you, so you could take it as your slave for life? 5 Can you play with it, like a bird, or tie it on a leash for your girls?
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Job

1 Enoch 60:7

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
6 And when the day of power, punishment, and judgment comes, which the Lord of Spirits has prepared for those who do not worship the righteous law, and for those who deny the righteous judgment, and for those who take His name in vain—that day is prepared, for the chosen a covenant, but for sinners an inquisition. 7 On that day, two great monsters were separated, a female monster named Leviathan, to dwell in the depths of the ocean over the springs of waters. 8 The male is named Behemoth, who with his chest occupies a desolate wilderness named Dûidâin, east of the garden where the chosen and righteous dwell, where my grandfather was taken up, the seventh from Adam, the first man whom the Lord of Spirits created.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

"... 1 Enoch 60 promotes the dominion of the “Head of Days” in several ways: his enthronement, emphasis on the deity’s universal control, and his taming of the sea, Leviathan, and Behemoth. Each of these features is a constituent element of the conflict motif, and each contributes to the legitimating ideology of the text. In 1 Enoch 60, the angel Michael explains to Noah what will happen when “the day” of punishment and judgment comes, including the role of Leviathan and Behemoth, who will feast upon those being punished. The passage begins with Noah seeing the “Head of Days” (Ethiopic rĕ’sa mawā‘ĕl) sitting on the “throne of his glory,” surrounded by angels and the righteous (1 Enoch 60:1–2). The sight of the enthroned “Head of Days” is so astounding that Noah trembles and faints (1 Enoch 60:3–4). An angel rouses Noah from his stupor (1 Enoch 60:4), and Michael then explains what will happen “when the day, and the power, and the punishment, and the judgment come, which the Lord of Spirits has prepared for those who worship not the righteous law” (1 Enoch 60:5–6). This day will include “a covenant for the elect, but an inquisition for sinners” (1 Enoch 60:6). The passage continues with discussion of the initial “divisions” and placement of various figures and phenomena, including Leviathan, Behemoth, winds, the moon, stars, thunder, lightning, the sea, dew, and rain. Throughout, the passage emphasizes that these figures and phenomena are carefully and fully controlled by various spirits. The sea in particular is controlled with reins and a bridle ... 1 Enoch 60 presumes such a taming of Leviathan and Behemoth as well as the sea, and these figures are completely within the control of the creator deity ..."
Debra Scoggins Ballentine, The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 154–155.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Job 41:1 and 1 Enoch 60:7

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