Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

What should I learn from this chapter?

* God is calling Satan a “Leviathan”; a monster living in a sea of people v34.
* The verses about Leviathan are literal, symbolic, metaphoric, and prophetic.
* God has created the “evil” as well as the “good”.
* God’s power is indisputable.
* Unfinished but yet to come: Topic: Pottery & Clay

Job 41

God’s Power over the Leviathan

Job 41:¹ “Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook,

• A “hook” is also called a “thorn”. A “thorn” is also called a “curse”. The three are similarly attached in meaning.

• Throughout scripture, Satan is described as a serpent, a dragon, a sea monster, crocodile, Leviathan, and a Beast. In each case, Satan is a reptile.
  
  • Revelation 12:9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
    
  • Isaiah 27:1 [Israel Will Be Restored] In that day (the return of Jesus to set up His kingdom on earth) the Lord with His severe sword, great and strong, Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan that twisted serpent; And He will slay the reptile that is in the sea (of people).

• God has a plan to “hook” the reptilian sea monster and pull him out of the sea of people.

Job 41:¹ (Continued) Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower?

• God has a special “lure” for Satan: Jesus. Jesus is the Word of God spoken with the tongue. By the Word of God, Satan will be destroyed. With the tongue men are destroyed and men are saved.

Job 41:² Can you put a reed through his nose (pierce his nose),
Or pierce his jaw with a hook (thorn/curse)?

• A “reed” in Hebrew literally means “a spear-man”.
• A “thorn” is literally translated as either a blessing or a curse. God created a hedge of thorns to protect Job, also by thorns, Adam was cursed to work the ground, Jesus wore it as a crown around His head, and God will bring Satan (the leviathan) to his end.

• God will “domesticate” Satan. Satan’s power will be removed by Jesus. Ironically, Satan’s power is removed by a thorn: the role of a crown of thorns.
  
• A second definition for Leviathan is the word “wreath” for its coiling and twisting.
  Jesus’s wreath is His crown of thorns. He both suffered Satan by it and He will rule and destroy Satan with it.
  It is as though the serpent had coiled itself around Jesus’ head, burying his fangs into Jesus’ scalp, and unleashing all his poisonous venom into Jesus at the crucifixion.

Job 41:³ Will he make many supplications to you?
Will he speak softly to you?

Job 41:⁴ Will he make a covenant (promise or oath) with you?
Will you take him as a servant forever?

Job 41:⁵ Will you play with him as with a bird,
Or will you leash him for your maidens?

• A bird is the most gentle among creatures. Satan is but a bird in God’s hands. In man’s hands, he is a dragon.

Job 41:⁶ Will your companions make a banquet of him (Or bargain over him)?
Will they apportion him among the merchants? (Those who will want to eat his flesh)

• It appears the Antichrist, after being indwelt by Satan, at the return of Jesus, will be captured and handed over to the Jewish court for his crimes, and finally, his execution. A modern idiom would say, “they will eat him alive.”

Job 41:⁷ Can you fill his skin with harpoons,
Or his head with fishing spears?

Job 41:⁸ Lay your hand on him;
Remember the battle—
Never do it again!

• Even Michael the Archangel could not speak against Satan, instead saying “The LORD rebuke you!”
  • Jude 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

• If you have ever tried battling Satan on your own – YOU WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!

Job 41:⁹ Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false;
Shall one not be overwhelmed at the sight of him?

Job 41:¹⁰ No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up.
Who then is able to stand against Me?

• If one cannot possibly stand against Satan, how much more against God?

Job 41:¹¹ Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him?

• Whom indeed!
  Who has preceded the eternal, everlasting God that God should owe them anything?

• If God is Eternal, without beginning or end, He can never be preceded or outlived. He can never be destroyed or created. To resist Him is futile, as Satan will discover.

Job 41:¹¹ (Continued) Everything under heaven is Mine.

• See Genesis chapter one.

Job 41:¹² “I will not conceal (Lit. keep silent about, hide) his (the Leviathan’s) limbs,
His mighty power, or his graceful proportions.

• And yet, even with understanding God’s eternal power, men should not underestimate Satan’s power.

Job 41:¹³ Who can remove his outer coat (Lit. take off the face of his garment)?
Who can approach him with a double bridle?

• A bridle is used to domesticate and lead.

Job 41:¹⁴ Who can open the doors of his face [expose him],
With his terrible teeth all around?

• This Sea Monster is the same “Monster” as the Beast in Daniel 7:19, “exceedingly dreadful, with its teeth of iron and its nails of bronze”, the same Sea Monster which swallowed Jonah in Jonah 1:17, also the Sea Monster in Malachi 1, Isaiah 27:1, Ezekiel 32:2, Isaiah 51:9, Isaiah 30:7, and Psalm 87:4.

• This monster will again rage when he indwells the Antichrist during the future Seven-Year tribulation.
  
  • Revelation 12:12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”
    
  • Mark 13:¹⁹ For in those days there will be tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the creation which God created until this time, nor ever shall be.

Job 41:¹⁵ His rows of scales (Lit. shields/thorns) are his pride,
Shut up tightly as with a seal;

• A shield is literally (can be translated as) a hedge of thorns.
  A “seal” is a defense. It keeps critical knowledge hidden from unknowing eyes.

Job 41:¹⁶ One is so near another
That no air can come between them;

• Air, or breath, is used for life and the Holy Spirit.

Job 41:¹⁷ They are joined one to another,
They stick together and cannot be parted.

• His pride is firmly set.

Job 41:¹⁸ His sneezings flash forth light,
And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning (šaḥar h7837).

• “Lucifer” means “The Star of the Dawn”.
• He emanates light that he, himself, does not possess, produced by the friction of man disobedience.
• His “sneezings” add flames to burning coals.
• It appears that, in the morning, he begins his workings against men, even as men also begin their daily work against the thorns of the ground.
  • Isaiah 47:11 Therefore, evil (like the rising of the Leviathan) shall come upon you; You shall not know from where it arises (šaḥar h7837). And trouble shall fall upon you; You will not be able to put it off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know.

Job 41:¹⁹ Out of his mouth go burning lights (as “Lucifer”);
Sparks of fire shoot out.

Job 41:²⁰ Smoke goes out of his nostrils,
As from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

• See Ezekiel’s boiling pot Ezekiel 24:5
• See Isaiah 21 (“inquire” literally: to boil)

Job 41:²¹ His breath kindles coals,
And a flame goes out of his mouth.

• Coals, burning embers which take forever to die out; the burning hatred of men ever glowing with hearts of greed, insecurity, and lust, becoming ignited when blown (or sneezed) upon (like a billow), fanning the flames of selfish desires.

Job 41:²² Strength dwells in his neck,
And sorrow (despair) dances before him.

• The third meaning, or translation, for Leviathan is “to mourn” in sorrow and despair.
  • Leviathan is literally a sea-monster, a wreath, and mourning.
  • It is interesting, as a play on words, that Satan is the “son of the morning,” and as the Leviathan, he is also, as one might say, the son of mourning.

Job 41:²³ The folds (scales) of his flesh are joined together;
They are firm on him and cannot be moved.

• Not only are the scales his pride that cannot be moved (changed), but they are pointed and hard with the ability to cut men, like potsherds (v.30)

Job 41:²⁴ His heart is as hard as stone,
Even as hard as the lower millstone.

• Satan’s heart is as hard as any ore made from the ground. He has no empathy or sympathy. “Feelings” have no meaning to him.

• When Jesus (the Father’s precious anointed Olive) poured out His soul unto death (Isaiah 53:12), praying in the Garden of olive trees (Gethsemane), Satan’s heart, like a millstone, metaphorically rolled over and over Jesus’ soul until the dark, red liquid of the Olive’s blood ran into a basin built for collecting the liquid. Thus, Jesus was “anointed” in His own blood to serve the Father.

Job 41:²⁵ When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid;
Because of his crashings (breakings), they are beside themselves (either sin, or purify themselves).

Job 41:²⁶ Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail;
Nor does spear, dart, or javelin.

• Satan, the serpent sea monster who causes the sea of people to boil, is evil; in him there is no light, only friction. Even the Sword of God’s Word does not affect him because he has no intention of being anything other than what he is, without remorse, without atonement. The “Principality of the Air” has not only deceived the entire world throughout the ages, but has deceived his own self into believing he could conquer the Trinity, breaking the bonds between the Godhead, hoping to turn each One against the Other. Unfortunately for Satan, God is One in purpose, character, and unity (Deut 6:4); such that when he offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, tempting him in the wilderness (Luke 4:5), he was turned down, his offer rejected, and left standing holding his empty contract of vile stupidity in his hand.
  
  • Psalm 2:3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”

Job 41:²⁷ He regards iron as straw,
And bronze as rotten wood.

Job 41:²⁸ The arrow cannot make him flee;
Slingstones become like stubble to him.

• Slingstones are stones used for slingshots. David picked out five, but the first killed Goliath. Slingstones cannot affect Satan, but they are lethal in the hands of someone who fights for God. Goliath, full of gall for the Hebrews, had four brothers, and David had four more stones. [David removed the Hebrew’s “Gall-stones”.]

Job 41:²⁹ Darts (To smite, like a club or mace) are regarded as straw;
He laughs (rises himself, śāḥaq h7837) at the threat (shaking) of javelins (spears).

Job 41:³⁰ His undersides are like sharp potsherds;
He spreads pointed marks in the mire (wet, foul, clay in a river’s bottom).

A depth of meaning in one short verse.

• God made man from the ground, translated as “dust” for its transitory nature, but it is also translated as clay. Clay is an entire story in and of itself, covering everything from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, replete with the topics of the creation of Adam, the fall of Adam, the instigation of the serpent, the betrayal of Judas, the redemption of Adam, the End Time with the Antichrist and the ten tribes, and the ultimate victory over Satan, the serpent, Leviathan, Beast, Dragon.
  See Topic: Pottery & Clay (Not yet finished)

Job 41:³¹ He makes the deep boil like a pot;

• Satan causes the sea of people to boil, fret, and stew. Esau’s red “stew” nāzîḏ (pottage) is rooted in the meaning of “boil” “seethe” “pride” H2102 – zûḏ. Esau’s pride caused him to despise his birthright (salvation).
  

Job 41:³¹ He makes the sea (of people) like a pot of ointment.

• Boiling, stewing, worrying, warring.

Job 41:³² He leaves a shining wake behind him;
One would think the deep had white hair.

• A “wake” is an after-shock of consequences, the wake in the water.

Job 41:³³ On earth there is nothing like him,
Which is made without fear.

Job 41:³⁴ He beholds every high thing;
He is king over all the children of pride.”

• Isaiah 14:13-14 For you (Satan) have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north;
  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’

• Satan is the king over ALL the children of pride.
  
  Psalm 10:4 The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts.
  
  Psalm 94:2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth; Render punishment to the proud.Proverbs 16:5a Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord;Isaiah 2:12 For the day of the Lord of hosts Shall come upon everything proud and lofty, Upon everything lifted up— And it shall be brought low—[Note: The day of the Lord is His return].
  
  *I Peter 5:5 [Submit to God, Resist the Devil] Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

See: Topic The Leviathan
See: Topic Metaphors for Satan
See: Satan