Breath of the Dragon

The Leviathan is mentioned six times in the Tanakh, with Job 41:1-34 being dedicated to describing him in detail:^[1]

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, sling stones 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.

In Psalm 74 God is said to "break the heads of Leviathan in pieces" before giving his flesh to the people of the wilderness; in Psalm 104 God is praised for having made all things, including Leviathan; and in Isaiah 27:1 he is called the "wriggling serpent" who will be killed at the end of time.^[2]

- Wikipedia

The Leviathan is about as scary as the Biblical writers could possibly imagine - it was a sea monster -- possibly because the writers were particularly afraid of anything to do with the sea. The *modern* dragon is also at home in the sea and is far more scary than anything the Biblical authors could have imagined.

On the bright side, the Biblical Leviathan is not immortal. It can be killed. It should be killed. It needs to be killed. The destruction of Leviathan is described in Isaiah 27:1, which is echoed in Revelation. In both cases, the authors are clearly referring metaphorically to a world power suppressing the people of Israel. I'm not claiming Biblical authority for my theories here, just pointing out that they are not strictly original with me. I personally don't think that that the Leviathan can or should be destroyed in the gruesome manner depicted in the Bible (nobody would survive the battle). I think we need to pull its teeth, calm it down and tame it.