What is Leviathan?
1.
The Apocryphal Book of Enoch gives the following description of this monster's origins:
'And that day will two monsters be parted, one monster, a female named Leviathan in order to dwell in the abyss of the ocean over the fountains of water; and (the other), a male called Behemoth, which holds his chest in an invisible desert whose name is Dundayin, east of the garden of Eden.' - 1 Enoch 60:7-8
Leviathan was a large whale-like sea creature, who may have had 7 heads according to some legends. A lengthy description of him comes from the Book of Job:
'His strong scales are his pride,
Shut up as with a tight seal.
One is so near to another
That no air can come between them.
They are joined one to another;
They clasp each other and cannot be separated.
His sneezes flash forth light,
And his eyes are like
the eyelids of the morning.
Out of his mouth go burning torches;
Sparks of fire leap forth.
Out of his nostrils smoke goes forth
As from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
His breath kindles coals,
And a flame goes forth from his mouth.
In his neck lodges strength,
And dismay leaps before him.
The folds of his flesh are joined together,
Firm on him and immovable.
His heart is as hard as a stone,
Even as hard as a lower millstone.
When he raises himself up, the mighty fear;
Because of the crashing they are bewildered.
The sword that reaches him cannot avail,
Nor the spear, the dart or the javelin.
He regards iron as straw, Bronze as rotten wood.
The arrow cannot make him flee;
Slingstones are turned into stubble for him.
Clubs are regarded as stubble;
He laughs at the rattling of the javelin.
His underparts are like sharp potsherds;
He spreads out like a threshing sledge on the mire.
He makes the depths boil like a pot;
He makes the sea like a jar of ointment.
Behind him he makes a wake to shine;
One would think the deep to be gray-haired.
Nothing on earth is like him,
One made without fear.
He looks on everything that is high;
He is king over all the sons of pride.'
- Job 42:15-32
Also, according to Isaiah 27:1, on the Day of Judgement the Lord will slay Leviathan:
'In that day the Lord will punish,
With His great, cruel, mighty sword
Leviathan the Elusive Serpent--
Leviathan the Twisting Serpent;
He will slay the Dragon of the sea.'
According to a passage in the T.B. Baba Bathra (75a), at the time of the resurrection, Gabriel will fight against Leviathan and overcome.
However, in Psalms 74:26 God is praised as having crushed the heads of Leviathan:
'it was You who crushed the heads of Leviathan,
who left him as food for the denizens of the desert'
In Paradise Lost, Milton mentions Leviathan twice referring to his enormous size.
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream.
-Paradise Lost i, 200-203
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
Tempest the ocean. There Leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep
Stretched like a promontory, sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land, and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out, a sea.
-Paradise Lost vii, 411-416
Leviatan: From Hebrew, LVIThN (usually written Leviathan instead of Leviatan), - the Crooked or Piercing Serpent or Dragon.
See
2.
Any big thing, person.
Out of my way, you leviathan!
3.
1) any large, powerful monster or creature.
2) a giant whale in Greek (or is it Roman?) mythology.
3) a similar giant whale in Final Fantasy games.
4) title of a book by Thomas Hobbes, which gives an authoritarian argument that flaws in human nature make the state necessary.
5) a name for the state, especially an authoritarian and far-reaching state, derived from Hobbes's book.
The front cover of Hobbes's book shows a picture of a giant king, the state, made up of lots of little people.
The irony is that Hobbes is effectively advocating the creation of a "monster", which is what Leviathan initially was.
See
4.
A large, land-based, four-wheeled vehicle in Unreal Tournament 2004. It seats one driver and four turret gunmen, and may be transformed into a stationary ion cannon. Players can "fly" the Leviathan by properly aligning a Raptor next to it and then switching to ion cannon mode.
Bitchwhore, stop flying the Leviathan!
See
5.
(from Hebrew liwjatan, roughly meaning "twisted" or "coiled") was a Biblical multi-headed sea monster, referred to in passing in the Old Testament (Psalms 74:13-14; Job 41; Isaiah 27:1), probably referring to crocodile or whale. The word leviathan has become synonymous with any large monster or creature.
The Biblical Leviathan is often considered to be a demon associated with Satan or the Devil, and held by some to be the same monster as Rahab (Isaiah 51:9). The Biblical references to Leviathan appear to have evolved from a Canaanite legend involving a confrontation between Baal and a seven headed sea monster which Baal defeats with the aid of Mot, and they also resemble a Babylonian myth in which the storm god Marduk slays the sea monster Tiamat and creates the earth and sky from the two halves of her corpse.
Leviathan may also be interpreted as the sea itself, with its counterpart, Behemoth, being the land.
Certain Jewish legends consider Leviathan as an androgynous dragon that seduced Eve in his male form, and Adam in his female form.
In demonology a Leviathan is every aquatic demon. They are great liars. Leviathans can also possess persons, being very difficult to exorcise; they try to possess every person, but especially women.
The word has been reused (not only in literature) over and again:
in the 1660 book Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
in the Illuminatus trilogy
in Moby-Dick as a reference to the whale
in the Final Fantasy games
in the Farscape science fiction series (living spaceship)
in the 1989 film Leviathan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Hebrew, leviathan also means a device for washing raw wool.
"Carefull with the laviathan!"
See
6.
1)~ One of the four dark princes (Satan, Lucifer, Belial, Leviathan) described in cHRISTIAN, and Jewish religous ideology. He also makes an apperence in the Satanic Bible (the Book of Leviathan)... in which he is considered the lord of the raging seas.
2)~ Leviathan is also an amazing one-man USBM band on Moribund Records, and has released two albums on the label at this time, "The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide" and "Tentacles of Whorror"
Hail the mighty Leviathan!!
7.
Demon of the deep.
Master of all that is evil.
Creature.
Puts forth kindness.
Shows no weakness.
I am LEVIATHAN. Do not mistake kindness for weakness.
