Leviathan

Destruction of Leviathan by Gustav Doré.

Leviathan is a monstrous, aquatic animal mentioned in Isaiah, Psalms and Job, also in 2 Esdras of the Apocrypha.

Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Job 41:1

In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. Isaiah 27:1

Some Christians believe that Leviathan was a dragon or dinosaur (probably a Plesiosaurus), other sources speculate that it was a crocodile or a whale. In Moby Dick, the narrator Ishmael often uses the word leviathan to refer to whales.

Leviathan is also the name of a book written in the seventeenth century by Thomas Hobbes. In it he reflects on the need for strong central government.^[1]

References[edit]

1. ↑ Full text of Hobbes's Leviathan