Leviathan and Behemoth: Giant Chaos Monsters in the Bible by Brian Godawa

Author:Brian Godawa [Godawa, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Warrior Poet Publishing
Published: 2022-02-11T22:00:00+00:00

Victory Banquet

In verse 14 another poetic image occurs that is a common theme throughout the other texts we will explore: a banquet feast on Leviathan’s dead flesh. This gruesome feast symbolizes a “victory banquet” for Yahweh’s kingship and is a common theme that appears in both biblical and extrabiblical Jewish poetry.[55]

Take for instance, this poem in Isaiah that describes the messianic banquet that will occur with the Messiah’s victorious arrival. Leviathan is here replaced with a personified “death” (Mot), well-known in Canaan as the underworld god whose appetite was endless and whose jaws and gullet were spread open over all peoples, swallowing all alike.[56]

Isaiah 25:6–8

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,

of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

And he will swallow up on this mountain

the covering that is cast over all peoples,

the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death forever…

This messianic banquet does not involve the animals or the people eating Leviathan; rather it is Yahweh himself who feasts on death for our sake. The Victory Banquet in a new context. We will see more of this victory banquet motif when we explore Leviathan’s and Behemoth’s eschatological dimensions later, but this brings another symbolic connection that one may apply to Leviathan in this passage. In other Scriptures (describing periods later than the Exodus), the prophet Ezekiel applies sea dragon imagery to Pharaoh and Egypt. So Psalm 74’s banquet feast of Leviathan could also carry with it the direct application of chaos to Egypt and Pharaoh. The Red Sea deliverance is the climax of Yahweh turning Egypt into chaos with his plagues and then victoriously feasting on that foe (v. 14). Let’s take a closer look at that comparison.

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