“Can you catch Leviathan with a hook
or put a noose around its jaw?
Can you tie it with a rope through the nose
or pierce its jaw with a spike?
Will it beg you for mercy
or implore you for pity?
Will it agree to work for you,
to be your slave for life?
Can you make it a pet like a bird,
or give it to your little girls to play with?
Will merchants try to buy it
to sell it in their shops?
Will its hide be hurt by spears
or its head by a harpoon?
If you lay a hand on it,
you will certainly remember the battle that follows.
You won’t try that again!
No, it is useless to try to capture it.
The hunter who attempts it will be knocked down.
And since no one dares to disturb it,
who then can stand up to me?
Who has given me anything that I need to pay back?
Everything under heaven is mine. “ (Job 41:1-11)

Do you feel lucky? God compares himself to a monster. In the mythology of Ugarit, a Canaanite city just north of Israel, Leviathan was a sea monster that battled the god Baal. His ally was Mot, the god of the underworld. Leviathan was defeated. For the Israelites, the monster’s death became a symbol for the death of the wicked. Also the monster was recognized as something that only God could defeat or control.

So God adapted the myth to his own purposes, pointing out that neither Job nor any other human being could control such a sea monster. But yet, here Job is thinking he can stand up to God and that he could legitimately question God’s choices. But God is all powerful and he owns everything. Is there something that God owes to Job? Has God somehow missed the past due bill? Job has no business questioning God’s goodness. If he wouldn’t bother a sea monster or ask it questions, then how could Job dare question God? If he feared a monster, he should fear even more the one who created it.

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