Psalm 104:25-35, 37
A psalm about the hand of God and his most fearsome of works, the Leviathan
25 O Lord, how manifold are your works! *
in wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
26 Yonder is the great and wide sea
with its living things too many to number, *
creatures both small and great.
27 There move the ships,
and there is that Leviathan, *
which you have made for the sport of it.
28 All of them look to you *
to give them their food in due season.
29 You give it to them; they gather it; *
you open your hand, and they are filled with good things.
30 You hide your face, and they are terrified; *
you take away their breath,
and they die and return to their dust.
31 You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; *
and so you renew the face of the earth.
32 May the glory of the Lord endure for ever; *
may the Lord rejoice in all his works.
33 He looks at the earth and it trembles; *
he touches the mountains and they smoke.
34 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; *
I will praise my God while I have my being.
35 May these words of mine please him; *
I will rejoice in the Lord.
37 Bless the Lord, O my soul. *
Hallelujah!
Under The Sea
As I read this passage, I was reminded of a series I watched. The series was called “Planet Earth“. I remember thinking as I was watching it, “How can someone watch this and not believe in God?!” That might sound like a strange thing to think while watching a science program. Well let me explain.
First off, the complexity and beauty of each creature had to come from intelligent design. I was amazed at how each creature was fitted with a unique way of surviving. Secondly, there was a flow(pardon the pun) to the mating season and the feeding of each species. Each species of the underwater world fed off the next one. Unlike mammals, sea creatures have no affinity for their offspring.
The Leviathan
So this creature has been mentioned several times in scripture. What is it? The leviathan is mentioned more than onece in Job and twice in Isaiah and in 2 different psalms. Scripture speaks of fish, sheep, wolves, bear, lion, serpents, birds, sparrows, eagles and many other animals that we are all familiar with. So if we hold that scripture does not speak of mythological creatures, then we may conclude that the Leviathan is real. But all the creatures that the bible mentions, we have seen. But no one has ever seen a leviathan. So we don’t know what to do with it. But scripture talks about this creature as if the reader is familiar with it.
Maybe we can speculate and come up with some ideas for the leviathan being mentioned. One idea may be that God created a creature that is so fearful to man and yet is subdued by God. In this we see the awesomeness of God. We see that God’s goodness is more powerful than anything that we are afraid of.
Another idea is that the Leviathan represents Satan. A powerful being that rules it’s realm but is confined to that realm by Yahweh. Boundaries are set up and this being can only live within those boundaries. Man is not designed to live in the water and when man ventures out to sea he is completely vulnerable to the Leviathan. This perhaps represents the idea that man is created in the image of God and designed to live in Eden. When we venture out of Eden we are vulnerable to Satan’s schemes. Thirdly the leviathan may be used as a device to persuade potential converts.
Leviathan to Hell Fire and Brimstone
A creature that fearsome exposes our vulnerability in this life and shows us our need for God’s protection. We can surmise that if something that overpowering needs God, then surely I am doomed. Jesus introduced his hearers to Hell. Perhaps Leviathan preachers were replaced with today’s Hell fire and brimstone preachers. Has anyone ever really seen Hell? Has Anyone ever really seen the Leviathan? In our humanness we often find ourselves saying and believing things that we have no evidence to support. But we need to believe them in order for our lives to have the meaning we want them to have.
Whether the Leviathan is real or a myth, we need it. We need it to shape the story we tell ourselves. The story of how we conquer evil with good.
