If you look at the New King James Version online at Bible Gateway you will see the following text from Chapter 41 of the book of Job in the Bible….with particular attention to the description of this creature starting in verse 13:
( https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=JOB%2041&version=NKJV )
1 “Can you draw out Leviathan[a] with a hook, Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower? 2 Can you put a reed through his nose, Or pierce his jaw with a hook? 3 Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak softly to you? 4 Will he make a covenant with you? Will you take him as a servant forever? 5 Will you play with him as with a bird, Or will you leash him for your maidens? 6 Will your companions make a banquet of him? Will they apportion him among the merchants? 7 Can you fill his skin with harpoons, Or his head with fishing spears? 8 Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle—Never do it again! 9 Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false; Shall one not be overwhelmed at the sight of him? 10 No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up. Who then is able to stand against Me? 11 Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine. 12 “I will not conceal his limbs, His mighty power, or his graceful proportions. 13 Who can remove his outer coat? Who can approach him with a double bridle? 14 Who can open the doors of his face, With his terrible teeth all around? 15 His rows of scales are his pride, Shut up tightly as with a seal; 16 One is so near another That no air can come between them; 17 They are joined one to another, They stick together and cannot be parted. 18 His sneezings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. 19 Out of his mouth go burning lights; Sparks of fire shoot out. 20 Smoke goes out of his nostrils, As from a boiling pot and burning rushes. 21 His breath kindles coals, And a flame goes out of his mouth. 22 Strength dwells in his neck, And sorrow dances before him. 23 The folds of his flesh are joined together; They are firm on him and cannot be moved. 24 His heart is as hard as stone, Even as hard as the lower millstone. 25 When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid; Because of his crashings they are beside themselves. 26 Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail; Nor does spear, dart, or javelin. 27 He regards iron as straw, And bronze as rotten wood. 28 The arrow cannot make him flee; Slingstones become like stubble to him. 29 Darts are regarded as straw; He laughs at the threat of javelins. 30 His undersides are like sharp potsherds; He spreads pointed marks in the mire. 31 He makes the deep boil like a pot; He makes the sea like a pot of ointment. 32 He leaves a shining wake behind him; One would think the deep had white hair. 33 On earth there is nothing like him, Which is made without fear. 34 He beholds every high thing; He is king over all the children of pride.”
For most people it is irrelevant because this is buried in an obsure book of the Old Testament. Significance: They have never read it and see no purpose in doing so. For most Christians, this is just a passage where God is telling his servant Job he is in control of all things and Job is to understand, repent and worship because he cannot know all there is about God or his purposes. The description therefore is important to most only in that it describes something incomprehensible that is completely under God’s control, therefore it symbolically illustrates his sovereign power over everything, to include the terrible circumstances in Job’s life at this point. To a few Christians, this description is pointing to an actual creature; however, since nothing alive today fits it the closest thing they have been told in their commentaries is a crocodile.
Enter in the truth. In the Creation Research Society Quarterly 60, Number 2, Fall 2023, in the article “Insight into Job’ Theology from a New Identification for Leviathan,” by Brian Thomas and Daniel A Biddle, the riddle may be solved. Meet the most likely creature fitting all the characteristics of that described in Job 41: Deinosuchus, or “terrible crocodile” from the Greek. With fossilized remains showing an animal at 33 – 36 feet in length, with massive, interlocking scales, and long legs, this ancient crocodile could cause the water to dance, could “play” as crocodiles do in their death rolls, would have had the most thorough scales and strength of any creature living or known to have existed, and would be capable of both sea and land movement. It would breathe with lungs. Did it breathe fire? Fossil records won’t answer this although the most recent findings of a skull indicate holes in the forward skull that aren’t nostrils and could be for the purpose, which otherwise have no known purpose.
As the authors point out, and as Dr. Floyd Nolan Jones stated many times in a 2006 lecture, if you can trust God for things we can verify (for Dr. Jones, Biblical chronology and math, for Thomas and Biddle, the existence of a living creature described by God in Job), then we are strengthened in our ability to believe by faith the things we cannot verify. Such as the promise of forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior.
As for Leviathan, the reason most people who are even aware of the reference in the Bible are concerned, the Leviathan is either a myth/metaphor, or a normal crocodile. A literal existence of a creature meeting the description in Job has mostly been written off because it sounds like some sea monster / dinosaur and nothing fits the characteristics. Further, every educated person knows the passage in Job 41 is indicating that God is referring in his conversation with Job to things Job would have personally seen. Therefore Job could have never seen any type of dinosaur or dino-like creature because they were all extinct at least 65 million years before people were on the planet.
Oh yes, education. It is the thing everyone should obtain by first studying God’s Word so that they know how to properly study and understand the rest of the knowledge we can find that is available to us.
If dinosaurs became extinct about 4000 or less years ago then the problem with Job never having seen one evaporates. If Christians at least would take time to see what the Bible says about the age of the earth, and to trust that God doesn’t lie, isn’t misunderstood by the prophets who wrote words under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, won’t allow his Word to be lost or corrupted, then they wouldn’t feel compelled to discount the Scripture in order to believe the true myths of “science.”
God did speak through the Bible. His Word is true and accurate. Scientists are fools if they don’t consider absolute truth in their research, exploration, and theories. Scientists will tell you ever thing in the universe created itself from nothing, and everything has grown up from there. How pathetic is that for a claim to “follow the science?”
