Job 41 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study

Job 41 Short Summary:

Job 41 is one of the most fascinating chapters in the whole Old Testament. In it, God describes an incredible animal called the Leviathan. The Leviathan was a formidable aquatic beast with scale-like armor and unrivaled power. He was the king of creation and had no worthy adversaries among men. While some suggest Leviathan was a crocodile, the description in Job 41 makes it clear Leviathan was a much fiercer beast of greater strength.

Job 41 Bible Study

SHORT OUTLINE OF THE BOOK OF JOB

• Job 1-2 – Job is Persecuted by Satan

• Job 3-37 – Job and His Friends Discuss the Reason He is Experiencing Persecution

• Job 38-41 – God Speaks with Job and Reveals His Greatness to Him.

• Job 42 – God Restores What Job Lost

WHEN:

• The date of the writing of Job is unknown and still debated. Some believe it was written during the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or even earlier, while others suspect it was written during the time of Judah’s Babylonian captivity (607-537 B.C.).

• I take the earlier date. The description of Job as the “greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3) and an absence of references to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple suggests to me that this book was written early.

KEY CHARACTERS:

• Job – A blameless and upright man who Satan persecuted in an attempt to turn his heart away from God.

• God – God descends to respond to the debate between Job and his friends.

WHERE:

• Job lived in the land of Uz. Most scholars surmise the land of Uz was in northern Saudi Arabia, either immediately south of the Dead Sea, I the land that would become known as Edom, or immediately east of the Dead Sea, which is today the country of Jordan.

OUTLINE:

• THE LEVIATHAN (41:1-34):

  • After describing the behemoth in chapter 40, God described another one of His marvelous creations in chapter 41, the Leviathan.

  • Again, this was meant to humble Job and to show him that men were not in a position to contend with God. They couldn’t even contend with the animals God created, how much less could they contend with the Creator.

  • The Leviathan was a formidable animal of legendary power.

  • It was uncatchable with fishhooks and uncontrollable with ropes. Its skin rendered harpoons useless.

  • It was not something children could play with and not something merchants sold at the markets. It could not be domesticated or caught for food.

  • If a man encountered the Leviathan, he would remember it for the rest of his life (if he survived). No one dared disturb Leviathan if they had any sense.

  • God said, “No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?” (41:10).

  • Leviathan’s teeth were terrifying, and its back was covered in shield-like armor. The armor is described as being air-tight, as if the scales were sealed together. Even his underbelly was shielded (41:30).

  • “Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth... His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth” (41:19, 21).

  • When Leviathans eyelids were rolled back, it was like the breaking of the dawn.

  • His neck was a symbol of strength and power.

  • Everything that stood in front of him was struck with terror. The mightiest of men were smitten with fear when he raised himself up.

  • If men managed to reach him with swords, clubs, javelins, or arrows, it was no concern to him. To Leviathan, iron was like straw, bronze broke like rotten wood, and arrows were like stubble (small pieces of a hay stalk) flying through the air.

  • When he moved through the water, it was as if the ocean was boiling. He left a huge wake behind him and made the top of the sea turn from blue to white. 

  • “On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear” (41:33).

  • Leviathan was king on earth, king and humbler of even the proudest of men.

APPLICATION

• What was Leviathan?

• The most popular living candidate for the identity of Leviathan is the crocodile.

• Perhaps it’s due to watching too many crocodile documentaries as a child, but I’ve seen too many men jump on the backs of crocodiles, tie their mouths closed, and render them essentially harmless to believe the creature described in Job 41 is a crocodile.

• People have been catching and killing crocodiles for millennia. Researchers have done CT scans of mummified crocodiles in Egypt and found fishhooks in their stomachs from them eating baited hooks. You can absolutely spear a crocodile and kill it.

• It seems almost certain that the Leviathan was a mighty beast of the ancient days that is no longer living.

• The description is too incredible to fit any modern animal, and I see no reason to poeticize all the language in Job 41 to make it fit a modern animal (as some interpreters attempt to do).