What is the "Leviathan" mentioned in Job? I'm trying to brush up on my apologetics skills, but this is one question I haven't found a clear answer to.

I've seen a few explanations for this &mdash; a dinosaur, crocodile, whale etc., but none of them seem to answer the question of why the creature is described as breathing fire (this is described in quite a lot of detail):


  Job 41
  18 Its snorting throws out flashes of light;
  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;its eyes are like the rays of dawn.
  19 Flames stream from its mouth;
  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;sparks of fire shoot out.
  20 Smoke pours from its nostrils
  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.
  21 Its breath sets coals ablaze,
  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;and flames dart from its mouth.


No known animals could have breathed fire. I considered that it could be a legendary animal known by the people of the time, but then why would God himself talk about it as a real animal? Another possibility could be that the book of Job is more of a parable to teach specific lessons than a historically accurate story.

I'd like to see if anyone else has come across other explanations for this question.
You might like to take a look at the related questions What does the Bible have to say about dinosaurs? and Are Dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible? for some dinosaur-specific ideas; and Do Catholics consider Job to be historical? for, well, exactly what the question title says.

Job is a bit of a tricky book in many ways. It is certainly held up as a preeminent example of "literary" writing in the Bible, regardless of the historicity of the events described. The content and style are sophisticated, in particular the central unresolved ambiguity of the text.1 This sort of thing makes us think that the work might be comparatively "late" (plus certain textual hints), whereas the book seems to be set in an "early" period (no mention of the Law, generally patriarchal flavour in the way Job's life is described). This leads us to a couple of tentative conclusions:


Since the book has many identifiable literary qualities, we  could also expect to see others: perhaps this passage is using hyperbole, symbolism, intertextual reference, etc. This is a short leap in the case of Job, whereas with some other Biblical texts, it's hard to say "oh yes, the author is clearly being figurative" without feeling a bit silly.
Since the book is framed as taking place either very long ago (using the tropes of patriarchal narratives) or not in any particular time (like a fable), we could compare it to other contemporary stories for help in understanding how the text works.
The main moral concept of the text is clear: as Affable Geek wrote in an earlier answer on the monsters of Job, "Basically, they are big and strong, but God is bigger." This is solid, and we can use it as a basis for understanding the detail of how the author of Job presents his message.


Monsters, like Leviathan and Behemoth, are fairly common in the epic literature of the ancient near east. The Enuma Elish, so often related to the Genesis creation accounts, recounts various beasts created by Tiamat:


  She spawned monster-serpents,
  Sharp of tooth, and merciless of fang;
  With poison, instead of blood, she filled their bodies.
  Fierce monster-vipers she clothed with terror,
  With splendor she decked them, she made them of lofty stature.
  Whoever beheld them, terror overcame him,
  Their bodies reared up and none could withstand their attack. 2


Another famous example is Humbaba/Huwawa from Gilgamesh,


  ...the warrior whose face is a lion's grimace, and whose breast is like a raging flood. No one dare approach his brow, which devours the reedbeds. On his tongue, like that of a man-eating lion, the blood never dries. You do not have enough strength for the warrior, such is his might. 3


We even get a mention of fire, though not fire-breathing precisely, in the Lugal-e of Ninurta:


  The Asag leapt up at the head of the battle. For a club it uprooted the sky, took it in its hand; like a snake it slid its head along the ground. It was a mad dog attacking to kill the helpless, dripping with sweat on its flanks. Like a wall collapsing, the Asag fell on Ninurta, the son of Enlil. Like an accursed storm, it howled in a raucous voice; like a gigantic snake, it roared at the Land. It dried up the waters of the mountains, dragged away the tamarisks, tore the flesh of the Earth and covered her with painful wounds. It set fire to the reedbeds, bathed the sky in blood, turned it inside out; it dispersed the people there. At that moment, on that day, the fields became black scum, across the whole extent of the horizon, reddish like purple dye - truly it was so! 4


All of these monsters are definitely big and scary - the terror they impart is the main point. This does match the theme of the Job passage. The reason behind mentioning Leviathan at all is to show the distance between God and Job: Leviathan is incredibly dangerous and incomprehensible to a human, but God is greater still. Other parts of God's speech to Job have a related purpose, such as to show that God knows things which are mysterious to Job, or that God's sovereignty extends over cosmic territory. So here, Leviathan - reminiscent of the famous monsters of other writings - is reframed not as a threat to the divine order, but as a subordinate part of it.

So we see a literary explanation for the supernatural characteristics of the beast. The author is appropriating a familiar image, the fearsome cosmic monster, in order to serve his purpose of teaching the unequaled sovereignty of God. Every phrase that makes Leviathan bigger and scarier also makes God bigger still. Conventional animals do not breath fire: but Leviathan is not a conventional animal. As Matthew Henry said,


  Probably these hyperbolical expressions are used concerning the leviathan to intimate the terror of the wrath of God, for that is it which all this is designed to convince us of. Fire out of his mouth devours, Ps. xviii. 7, 8. The breath of the Almighty, like a stream of brimstone, kindles Tophet, and will for ever keep it burning, Isa. xxx. 33. The wicked one shall be consumed with the breath of his mouth, 2 Thess. ii. 8. 5


These descriptions also help the reader to perceive the connection with monsters like the Asag, who are also described with a kind of "cosmic hyperbole".

It is true that other aspects of Leviathan and Behemoth are reminiscent of real living creatures (hippo? whale? serpent?) or even of dinosaurs. There may be some attempt by the author to unify the cosmic-mythological Leviathan with various known natural creatures, which would more squarely place it in the company of ostriches and donkeys (Job 39) rather than being God-like. But it goes against the spirit of the text to treat Job 41 as a zoologist's description of some existing species. The whole point is that Leviathan isn't a normal sort of creature, but an incomprehensible epic threat.

Does it matter that Leviathan is not a real creature, like an ostrich? I don't think it does. If Job were being written for the first time today, its author could perfectly well say that God eats Death Stars for breakfast and uses Barad-Dur as a toothpick. These are perfectly comprehensible cultural references that are not in the least bit harmed by being fictional.6 We get the point.

Further, there is no need to come up with any outlandish speculation about dinosaur-dragons roaming Mesopotamia. (And so Asag, Humbaba, and company would all be based on folk legends about these real creatures.) That is a theory which explains some things - the answer to "why is Leviathan said to breathe fire?" is "because he actually did". But the theory creates far more problems than it solves. In addition to the obvious archaeological problems, it is bad theology. It is far better to try to read Job as the author probably intended - as a literary, philosophical, and intertextual story about God and humanity - than to project anachronistic notions onto the book.



1. Not to be overly snotty about it, but this is one of the things that people often cite as  distinguishing "proper literary stuff" from "formulaic tripe". I'm thinking of people like Roland Barthes, who exalted paradox, enigma, unresolved tension, and in general any writing that requires the reader to do work (The Pleasure of the Text, S/Z, etc.).
2. Enuma Elish, tablet 2, translated by L. W. King (London, 1902).
3. Gilgameš and Ḫuwawa (Version B), 90-95. From the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, t.1.8.1.5.1.
4. Ninurta's exploits, 168-186. ETCSL, t.1.6.2.
5. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 3 (1708-1710), commentary on Job 41.
6. Nitpicking about the relative sizes of Barad-Dur and the Death Star, the nutritional value of the latter, or the nature of divine dentition, misses the point. Indeed, it does not make material sense, but neither is it intended to be read in that way.