Leviathan - Suffering is a Beast

Job 41:1 (ESV) Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord?   

God now uses a water or sea creature called Leviathan to rebuke Job. It could be some mythical sea creature or a crocodile. We don’t know. But what we do know is that this great beast is utterly unusual to man. He cannot catch it, train it, use it as a pet or tame it. 

Job 41:2-5 (ESV) Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?  3  Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words?  4  Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? 5  Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls? 

What is God saying? Simply this: Leviathan is wild beyond measure and yet God has made it. If mankind cannot control this small creature in comparison to the Earth, what hope does man have in control of anything God allows - including suffering. This is the final lesson of Job’s journey. The Earth contains a lot of elements that never need your or ask you for permission. Life is filled with unexpected twists and turns.

God says, 

Job 41:11 (ESV) Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. 

This would, of course, include the great creature Leviathan. He belongs to God not to us. So too, this world, with its strange and unpredictable events, with it’s dangers and toils and snares, with it’s potential for both good and harm - all belongs to God. 

Beyond the purpose of Leviathan is the wild nature of the creature. And here God is comparing Job’s suffering to this creature. Just as no man can tame or train the beast, no man can control the suffering and pains of his life. Suffering is a beast. It is is fiercely independent of our imaginations and operations.

Perhaps however, the key line concerning this beast is the final two verses that finish God’s lecture to Job:

Job 41:33–34 (ESV) On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear. 34 He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride.” 

Just as Leviathan is unequaled and glorious in power and perspective, so too is the suffering that God allows in our life. How? In suffering we see higher things. We see our fears lessened as we personally face them. And who ultimately did this but Christ Himself. He is the true suffering servant who surrendered control to God’s plan in suffering and saved the world through it.