The Leviathan

15 “Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you; it eats grass like an ox. 16 Its strength is in its loins, and its power in the muscles of its belly. 17 It makes its tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are knit together. 18 Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like bars of iron. 19 “It is the first of the great acts of God—

The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world.

14 Who can open the doors of its face? There is terror all around its teeth. 15 Its back[156] is made of shields in rows, shut up closely as with a seal. 16 One is so near to another that no air can come between them. 17 They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated. 18 Its sneezes flash forth light, and its eyes are

Job 41 [147] “Can you draw out Leviathan[148] with a fishhook, or press down its tongue with a cord? 2 Can you put a rope in its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook? 3 Will it make many supplications to you? Will it speak soft words to you? 4 Will it make a covenant with you to be taken as your servant forever? 5 Will you play with it as with a bir

Then the darkness parted, and he came. Huge he was, white and gray, burned onto the depths like an afterimage of the sun. His silent wings rippled, rills of current flowing off their tips. His eyes were thin and slitted like a cat’s, his mouth a bloodless slash. I stared. When I had stepped into the water, I had told myself that this would be only