Drawing Out Leviathan
March 01, 2008
A recent story from Fox News reports on the findings of a research team from the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, led by Dr. Jørn Hurum. The team found the fossilized skeleton of a sea monster known as a “pliosaur.” The skeleton was found in the mountains of Spitsbergen. Spitsbergen is the largest island in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, inside the Arctic Circle.
This pliosaur, found in the summer of 2006, is the largest sea creature of its type ever found in the world. It is estimated to have been over 50 feet in length and its jaws were 10 feet long.
This sea creature is in the same family as the Kronosaurus found in Australia. A general description of this animal would be better describing it as a short-necked plesiosaur. The legendary Loch Ness Monster is thought to have been a plesiosaur.
With the rarity of a find like this and the size of the sea monster, team leader, Jorn Hurum, has nicknamed this animal “The Monster.”
Sea Monsters?
Stories of great sea monsters have been shared for generations. We hear the stories, we read the findings, we may even see the evidence first-hand in a museum, but where do we turn to find the truth of these great sea creatures?
As a Christian, I immediately turn to the Bible for answers. What if there were, rooted deep in these stories, elements of reality; a sea creature with great size, strength, and power … something other than the great whales that swim our world’s oceans today, a sea creature beyond compare?
In the 41st chapter of the book of Job, there is such a sea creature as this: “Canst thou draw out leviathan with a fishhook?” The Tyndale Bible dictionary defines leviathan as a “Great sea monster or large aquatic reptile.” The book of Job describes it as having “strong scales” that are “so near to one another, that no air can come between them.” This sea creature is not a whale (whales do not have scales), nor is it an alligator as some have suggested (alligators are not sea creatures). The description of the size and strength of leviathan, as shown in the following verses, is compatible with the one of the great plesiosaurs or pliosaurs found as fossilized skeletons today.
Chapter 41 describes the strength of leviathan this way…
“Canst thou put a rope into his nose? Or pierce his jaw through with a hook?”
“Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons, Or his head with fish-spears? Lay thy hand upon him; Remember the battle, and do so no more.”
“Upon earth there is not his like, That is made without fear.”
Chapter 41 describes a real sea creature with size, strength and power unlike man has seen today; but in the midst of this demonstration, God wants to remind us that He is the One without equal. The article mentioned above identifies a creature called a pliosaur. Like the leviathan, this sea creature was designed to bring glory to God.
Let me encourage you to remember that while we are often amazed with the enormity, complexity and mystery of this world in which we live, all of the seen and the unseen rests in the palm of God’s hand. God is in control over all.
Tommy