Job 41:10

Most identify leviathan with the crocodile. Like behemoth, leviathan is a strong and untamable beast. Jehovah asks: Can you draw out leviathan with a hook? Can you pierce his jaw with a reed? Will you take him for a servant forever? Then He declares that he is fierce, and even the sight of him casts a man down. And if a creature is so mighty and strong, what must the One be who called this creature into existence? Verses 10 and 11 should read: "Who then is able to stand before Me (the Creator)? Who gave to Me first, that I should repay him? Since all beneath the heavens is Mine."

Can you play with him like a bird or a deer, a toy for girls? He is no commodity for traders, no game for the hunter, no safe opponent in battle. The very sight of him might knock you flat, and the man who would provoke him is a fool. Yet what is that compared with making a stand before God?

If this is true of a mere creature, who can stand before the Creator? (This is how verse 10 should read. It leads up to verse 11, "Who will stand before Me?") Who has ever given to Jehovah first, so that he can demand it back? Or, as the apostle asks, "Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" (Romans 11:35).

This describes not only a mighty power, but a power for evil. Scripture calls Satan the dragon (Revelation 20:2). As ruler of the earth, working through his instrument the ruler of Egypt, he is the one spoken of here: "In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea" (Isaiah 27:1).

No human is so fierce that he would dare to stir up such a creature (v.10). But let us remember it is God who made this beast. Who then could stand against God?… Of him people will say, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?" (Revelation 13:4). No man can stand before the beast and the Antichrist. Yet the Lord will bring them down to a humiliating defeat.

Under the figure of leviathan, God now shows Job that the power of Satan is too great for him. … But what could be God's purpose in describing the power of the enemy? Surely it was to lead Job into complete dependence on Him. "I know," says Job, "that you can do all things." … It was independence of God that opened the door to Satan at first, and simple dependence on God alone can shut it.

God brings forward His works to turn us away from our own thoughts and bow us to Himself. If the works of God are so wonderful, who is He who made them, and what is man if he dares to judge such a God?… "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." It was nothing external now, no distant rumour… "Therefore I despise myself." Do you think that studying the build or habits of behemoth and leviathan would have led to anything like that? Certainly not. He was dealing with God Himself. God used those creatures for that very purpose, and through them turned Job away from everything else to Himself.