NOTES for Job 41:11-34

Whom does the Lord mean when he speaks of Leviathan? It is not easy to answer this question unequivocally, for Leviathan often appears as a symbol of the forces rebelling against the Creator, and perhaps it is no accident that he is called here the “king over all the proud.” But even if this is not so, and if Leviathan is to be understood, as other interpreters believe, as some living creature—apparently a crocodile—then even on this reading Leviathan appears before us as a creature that visibly reveals the Creator’s might. Its description is vivid and expressive; we sense how a power beyond human control is subdued by God.