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Targum Psalms

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Psalm 104

1 Bless, O my soul, the name of the Lord. O Lord my God, you are greatly exalted; you have put on praise and splendor. 2 Who wraps himself in light like a sheet, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain. 3 Who covers his chambers with water like a building with beams; who placed his chariot, as it were, upon swift clouds; who goes on the wings of an eagle. 4 Who made his messengers as swift as wind; his servants, as strong as burning fire. 5 Who lays the foundation of the earth upon its base, so that it will not shake for ages upon ages. 6 You have covered over the abyss as with a garment; and the waters split on the mountains, and endure. 7 At your rebuke, they will flee, flowing down; at the sound of your shout, they will be frightened, pouring themselves out. 8 They will go up from the abyss to the mountains, and descend to the valleys, to this place that you founded for them. 9 You have placed a boundary for the waves of the sea that they will not cross, lest they return to cover the earth. 10 Who releases springs into rivers; they flow between the mountains. 11 They water all the wild animals; the asses will break their thirst. 12 The birds of heaven will settle on them; they will give out a sound of singing from among the branches. 13 Who waters the mountains from his upper treasury; the earth will be satisfied with the fruit of your deeds. 14 Who makes grass grow for beasts, and herbs for the cultivation of the son of man, that bread may come forth from the earth; 15 And wine that gladdens the heart of the son of man, to make the face shine by oil; and bread will support the heart of the son of man. 16 The trees that the Lord created are satisfied, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted: 17 Where the birds make nests; the stork’s dwelling is in the cypresses. 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are security for the conies. 19 He made the moon to calculate times by; the sun knows the time of his setting. 20 You will make darkness and it will be night; in it all the beasts of the forest creep about. 21 The offspring of lions roar to find food, and to seek their sustenance from God. 22 The sun will shine, they gather together; and they lay down in their dwelling place. 23 A son of man will go forth to his work and to his cultivation, until the sunset of evening. 24 How many are your works, O Lord! You have made all of them in wisdom; the earth is full of your possessions. 25 This sea is great and broad in extent; creeping things are there without number, both tiny creatures and large. 26 There the ships go about, [and] this Leviathan you created for the sport of the righteous at the supper of his dwelling place.⁠ 27 All of them rely on you to give their food in its time. 28 You will give it to them, and they gather it; you will open your hand, and they are satisfied with goodness. 29 You will remove your presence, they are dazed; you will gather their spirit and they expire, and return to their dust. 30 You will send out your holy spirit and they are created; and you will make new the surface of the earth. 31 May the glory of the Lord be eternal; the Lord will rejoice in his works. 32 Who looks at the earth, and it shakes; he draws near to the mountains, and they emit smoke. 33 I will sing praise in the presence of the Lord during my life; I will make music to my God while I exist. 34 May my talk be pleasing in his presence; I will rejoice in the word of the Lord. 35 The sinners will be destroyed from the earth, and wicked exist no longer. Bless, O my soul, the name of the Lord. Hallelujah!

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Baruch 29:4 and Targum Psalm 104:26

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Targum

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Summary

2 Baruch shows Leviathan and Behemoth in the messianic age, where they are given to the righteous at a banquet. This likely comes from an Aramaic tradition later preserved in the Targum of Psalm 104, which says Leviathan was made for the righteous.

Passages

2 Baruch 29:4

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch
2 For at that time I will protect only those who are found in those self-same days in this land. 3 And it shall come to pass when all is accomplished that was to come to pass in those parts, that the Messiah shall then begin to be revealed. 4 And Behemoth shall be revealed from his place and Leviathan shall ascend from the sea, those two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation, and have kept until that time; and then they shall be for food for all that are left. 5 The earth also shall yield its fruit ten thousandfold and on each vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster produce a thousand grapes, and each grape produce a cor of wine.
70–135 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Baruch

Targum Psalm 104:26

Targum
24 How many are your works, O Lord! You have made all of them in wisdom; the earth is full of your possessions. 25 This sea is great and broad in extent; creeping things are there without number, both tiny creatures and large. 26 There the ships go about, [and] this Leviathan you created for the sport of the righteous at the supper of his dwelling place. 27 All of them rely on you to give their food in its time. 28 You will give it to them, and they gather it; you will open your hand, and they are satisfied with goodness.
200–600 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Targum Psalms

References

“... In this respect it is not coincidental that the early pseudepigraphical accounts that detail the traditions about the messianic feasting on Leviathan and Behemoth describe the monsters’ apparition in the messianic time as revelation. Thus, for example, 2 Bar 29:3-4 juxtaposes the appearance of the Messiah with the revelation of Behemoth and Leviathan. Although 2 Baruch does not mention the monsters’ fight, later Jewish traditions often suggest that at the end of times Behemoth and Leviathan will be revealed to the righteous in their battle with each other. In such an arrangement, a disclosure of eschatological secrets will take the form of a spectacle when the righteous are entertained by the fighting monsters. The traces of this motif can be found in various rabbinic corpora, including targumim, midrashim, and piyyutim. Thus, Targum on Psalms 104:25-26 states that God created Leviathan in order to sport at the banquet of the righteous. It is possible that here the tradition about God’s “sporting” with Leviathan is interpreted through the spectacles of the monsters’ eschatological fight. ...”
Andrei A. Orlov, “Eschatological Consumption of Leviathan and Behemoth as Revelation of the Messianic Torah,” in Watering the Garden: Studies in Honor of Deirdre Dempsey, ed. Andrei A. Orlov, Biblical Intersections 19 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2022), 261–262.

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2 Baruch 29:4 and Targum Psalm 104:26

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