LEVIATHAN (Heb. Livjāthān). - A fabulous aquatic monster, akin to the tannin, or tannim, to which it is joined by parallel synonymy in Is. 27:1 (cf. DRAGON), applied to the crocodile (Job 40:25 [Vulg. 40:20]; cf. Is. 27:1) and to a generic great sea monster (Ps. 104:26; 74:14; cf. Am. 9:3).
The Hebrew word derives from livojāh "tortuous" (hence "crown": Prov. 1:9; 4:9; Hebrew and Arabic root lāh "to twist," Assyrian lamā, -wū "to encircle"), with the nominal ending -ān, understood by the Septuagint as "dragon" (v.) and once as "great sea monster" (Job 3:8 μέγα κῆτος); Vulg. L. (Job 3:8; 40:20 [Heb. 25]; Is. 27:1) and draco (Ps. 73 [74]:14; 103 [104]:26; new vers. L.).
The originally fabulous, popular character of the L. is demonstrated by the mention in a Ugaritic text of Līu (probably to be read Lōtān), as a being to be "struck, destroyed" (cf. in Job 3:8 the allusion to the maleficent character of the monster), "twisting... coiled serpent; the accursed (?) one of the seven heads"; this discovery has partly reduced and partly confirmed the mythographic hypotheses previously advanced by H. Gunkel (cf. P. Heinisch, Teologia del Vecchio Testamento, Turin 1950, p. 167).
In Is. 27:1 the L. is called "gliding serpent... twisting serpent," an expression probably symbolic of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and therefore of Assyria and Babylonia, alongside the "dragon that is in the sea," a symbol of Egypt.
There is already implicit here a reference to the river monsters. In Ps. 74:14, where it is presented as a monster with many heads - Vaccari: "hydra"; cf. the aforementioned Ugaritic text -, the L. is similarly an image of the Egyptian power of the Mosaic age. In Ps. 104:26 it is usually translated simply as "whale." The L. of Job 3:8 has a particularly fabulous character, a monster (according to other authors a personification of the darkness of the clouds) that is evoked for maleficent purposes by magicians. In Job 40:25 it indicates the "crocodile," of which the proudly celebrated description follows.
The monster tannin also has its counterpart in the Tnn of Rās Samrah, where it is mentioned in magical contexts (Gordon, Ugaritic Literature [v. bibl.], p. 49).